This packet is everything a parent or guide needs to assess Unit 05 at home — learning targets, the answers that count as correct, the mastery rubric, calibration examples, and a clipboard score sheet. No multiple-choice test: the student shows mastery by running a tropism or germination trial and naming the hormone or signal behind the response.
By the end of the Plant Growth & Hormones unit, a student should be able to:
Six criteria, each judged Not yet / Approaching / Mastered (Page 3).
Run a phototropism or germination trial; link the result to a hormone.
The student explains a tropism or apical dominance aloud (Page 4).
Setup, measurements, and hormone reasoning kept distinct.
You are making a decision, not adding up points. For each criterion, decide whether the work is Not yet, Approaching, or Mastered — the column language tells you which. A criterion counts as mastered only when the student can both run the setup and defend the plant biology behind it. A student carries three tokens per term; one token buys a re-do of one criterion on another day, so a single bad afternoon never sinks the unit.
Accept any answer in the synonyms column — they are pre-approved as equivalent. The third column flags the confusions that look close but are not yet, so you can coach precisely.
| Canonical answer | Accepted synonyms | Common confusion / discriminator |
|---|---|---|
| Plant hormones | ||
| Auxin | IAA / growth hormone | Drives cell elongation; builds up on the shaded or lower side to bend growth |
| Gibberellin | GA | Triggers stem elongation and seed germination; breaks dormancy |
| Cytokinin | cell-division hormone | Promotes cell division and delays leaf aging; balances auxin |
| Abscisic acid (ABA) | stress hormone | Closes stomata and enforces dormancy — a hormone, not an acid you titrate |
| Growth responses & signals | ||
| Ethylene | ripening gas | The one gaseous hormone; ripens fruit and triggers leaf drop |
| Tropism | directional growth | Growth toward or away from a stimulus; driven by auxin redistribution |
| Apical dominance | shoot-tip control | Auxin from the tip suppresses side buds; remove the tip and they grow |
| Photoperiodism | night-length sensing | Phytochrome measures night length to time flowering and germination |
| Criterion | Not yet | Approaching | Mastered |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plant hormones & their effects | Cannot name the plant hormones or thinks plants have none. | Names a hormone or two but confuses their effects. | Identifies auxins, gibberellins, cytokinins, ethylene, and abscisic acid and explains what each does — from stem elongation to fruit ripening to dormancy. |
| Tropisms (photo-, gravi-, thigmo-) | Thinks plants cannot move or respond to their surroundings. | Names a tropism but cannot explain what drives the bend. | Predicts and explains phototropism, gravitropism, and thigmotropism, linking each directional growth to the redistribution of auxin. |
| Apical dominance | Cannot explain why a pruned plant grows bushier. | Describes apical dominance but not the hormone behind it. | Explains how auxin from the shoot tip suppresses the side buds and predicts what happens when the tip is removed. |
| Photoperiodism & germination control | Thinks day length has no effect on flowering. | Mentions photoperiod but cannot connect it to phytochrome or germination. | Explains how phytochrome lets a plant measure night length to time flowering and germination, and predicts a short- vs. long-day response. |
| Lab technique (tropism & germination setup) | Sets up seedlings with no controlled light or gravity variable. | Runs the experiment but records growth loosely or skips the control. | Designs a clean phototropism or gravitropism trial with a proper control, measures curvature or growth over time, and links the result to a hormone. |
| Integration (cross-domain) | Treats the science as isolated facts; makes no cross-domain connection. | Names a link to history, reading, or writing but cannot defend why it matters. | Connects the unit to its anchor across History · Reading · Writing (plus chosen electives) and defends why the connection matters. |
The split between Approaching and Mastered is naming the mechanism: it is not enough to see the shoot bend — the student names the auxin redistribution behind it. Ask “which side grew faster, and what moved there?”
Read these before you grade. They show what Mastered and Not yet actually sound like, plus the edge cases where you should coach rather than decide on the spot.
Student: ______________________________________ Date: _______________ Guide: _________________________
| # | Criterion | Decision | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Plant hormones & their effects | NY / Appr / Mast | |
| 2 | Tropisms (photo-, gravi-, thigmo-) | NY / Appr / Mast | |
| 3 | Apical dominance | NY / Appr / Mast | |
| 4 | Photoperiodism & germination control | NY / Appr / Mast | |
| 5 | Lab technique (tropism & germination setup) | NY / Appr / Mast | |
| 6 | Integration (cross-domain) | NY / Appr / Mast |
☐ No ☐ Yes — for criterion: __________ Tokens remaining: ☐ 3 ☐ 2 ☐ 1 ☐ 0
NY = Not yet · Appr = Approaching · Mast = Mastered · Unsure between two levels? Circle the lower one and note what a re-do would need.