This packet is everything a parent or guide needs to assess Unit 03 at home — the technique targets, the calibration anchors, the mastery rubric, and a clipboard score sheet. No written test: the student shows mastery by exposing a real arthropod and locating, naming, and explaining its structures while you watch.
By the end of the Grasshopper unit, a student should be able to:
Six criteria, each judged Not yet / Approaching / Mastered (Page 3).
Expose the specimen and locate, name, and explain real structures — watched live.
The student explains why each structure does its job (Page 4 anchors).
Careful observations of the external and mouthpart structures 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 perform the technique cleanly and locate, name, and explain the structures on the actual specimen. 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Body regions & external parts | ||
| Head | anterior region | Bears the eyes, antennae, and mouthparts — the front tagma |
| Thorax | middle region | Bears the wings and the three pairs of legs |
| Abdomen | posterior region | The long rear tagma; carries the spiracles along its sides |
| Compound eye | faceted eye | Made of many units; not a single simple lens |
| Sense & breathing | ||
| Antennae | feelers | Paired sensory organs on the head — smell and touch |
| Spiracles | breathing pores | Openings along the abdomen; air enters directly, not through lungs |
| Tympanum | hearing membrane | The eardrum-like membrane on the first abdominal segment |
| Exoskeleton | cuticle; outer skeleton | Supports and protects from the outside; molted to grow |
| Mouthparts & gut | ||
| Mandibles | jaws | The hard, toothed mouthparts that chew — the innermost pair |
| Maxillae | accessory jaws | Paired mouthparts that hold and manipulate food |
| Labium | lower lip | The fused mouthpart forming the floor of the mouth |
| Gastric caeca | digestive pouches | Finger-like pouches off the gut that secrete digestive juices; the crop stores food ahead of them |
| Criterion | Not yet | Approaching | Mastered |
|---|---|---|---|
| Instrument handling & safe technique | Grips the scalpel, scissors, forceps, or probe awkwardly and cuts too hard through the hard body, crushing parts or slipping. | Handles the instruments correctly with reminders but still presses too hard on the exoskeleton or steadies the small specimen poorly. | Holds each instrument the right way and works with a light, controlled hand suited to a small, hard-bodied specimen, safely for both the student and the specimen. |
| Careful exposure & observation | Tears at the wings and legs and pulls parts off before looking at how they attach. | Removes the wings and legs roughly and disturbs external parts before observing them. | Clears the wings and legs cleanly at their joints and observes each region before disturbing it, leaving the exposed structures intact. |
| Locating & naming external structures | Cannot point to the head, thorax, or abdomen, or find the compound eyes, antennae, or spiracles. | Finds the major body regions with prompting but confuses the mouthparts, misses the spiracles, or overlooks the tympanum. | Locates and names the head, thorax, abdomen, compound eyes, antennae, mouthparts, spiracles, wings, legs, and tympanum on the specimen. |
| Locating & naming mouthpart & internal structures | Guesses at the mouthparts or names the wrong ones once they are separated. | Separates the mouthparts but cannot reliably tell mandibles from maxillae or find the crop and gastric caeca. | Locates and names the mandibles, maxillae, and labium, and finds the crop and gastric caeca on the specimen. |
| Explaining structure & function (and specimen care) | Cannot say what a structure does, and handles the fragile specimen carelessly or lets it dry out. | Explains one or two structures' functions but not the rest, and keeps the specimen moist and intact only when reminded. | Explains why key structures do their jobs — the exoskeleton for support and protection, the spiracles for taking in air, the mouthparts specialized for chewing — while handling the specimen respectfully, keeping it moist, and cleaning up afterward. |
| 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 the real specimen over the label: naming a part from memory is not the same as pointing to it on the tray. Ask the student to find the spiracles along the abdomen and say what they do; the answer should match the structure in front of them.
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 | Instrument handling & safe technique | NY / Appr / Mast | |
| 2 | Careful exposure & observation | NY / Appr / Mast | |
| 3 | Locating & naming external structures | NY / Appr / Mast | |
| 4 | Locating & naming mouthpart & internal structures | NY / Appr / Mast | |
| 5 | Explaining structure & function (and specimen care) | 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.