This packet is everything a parent or guide needs to assess Unit 01 at home — the 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 field surveys and reasoning from energy flow aloud.
By the end of the Ecosystems & Energy Flow unit, a student should be able to:
Six criteria, each judged Not yet / Approaching / Mastered (Page 3).
Population density and biodiversity estimated in the field.
The student reasons from energy flow aloud (Page 4 anchors).
Contemporaneous record of counts, transect data, and NPP estimates.
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 survey and justify the ecology 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Trophic structure | ||
| Producer | autotroph; primary producer | Makes its own food by photosynthesis; the base of every food web |
| Consumer | heterotroph | Primary = herbivore; secondary and tertiary = carnivore |
| Decomposer | detritivore; saprotroph | Recycles matter back to producers; not a dead-end |
| Food web | interlocking food chains | A web of many linked chains, not one single line |
| Energy flow | ||
| Trophic level | feeding level | Each step up a food chain; energy shrinks at every one |
| 10% rule | ten-percent law | About 90% of energy is lost as heat between levels |
| Gross primary productivity | GPP | Total energy fixed by producers, before their own respiration |
| Net primary productivity | NPP | GPP minus respiration; the energy left for consumers |
| Community structure | ||
| Keystone species | disproportionate driver | Its removal collapses a community out of proportion to its numbers |
| Niche | ecological role | An organism’s role, not just its habitat (where it lives) |
| Biome | major ecosystem type | Set by climate — e.g. tundra, desert, rainforest |
| Limiting factor | constraint on growth | The resource that caps a population or its productivity |
| Criterion | Not yet | Approaching | Mastered |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trophic levels & food webs | Confuses producers, consumers, and decomposers or their roles. | Names the trophic levels but stumbles tracing energy through a food web. | Reads any food web fluently and traces energy from producer to top predator, naming each trophic level. |
| Energy flow & the 10% rule | Thinks energy is recycled through an ecosystem the way matter is. | States the 10% rule but cannot apply it across levels. | Calculates the energy available at each trophic level from the 10% rule and explains why food chains stay short. |
| Primary productivity (GPP & NPP) | Uses gross and net productivity interchangeably. | Defines GPP and NPP but cannot separate them in data. | Distinguishes GPP, NPP, and respiration, and computes NPP from field or dataset measurements. |
| Biomes, niches & keystone species | Cannot say why one species matters more than another to a community. | Recalls the term “keystone species” but not its effect. | Predicts how removing a keystone species cascades through a food web and links biomes to their limiting factors. |
| Field technique (quadrat & transect survey) | Places the quadrat carelessly or miscounts the sample. | Runs the survey but records the data inconsistently. | Runs clean quadrat and transect sampling, estimates population density and biodiversity, and defends the sampling design. |
| Integration (cross-domain) | Treats the science as isolated facts. | Names a link to history, reading, or writing but cannot defend it. | Connects the unit across History · Reading · Writing and defends why it matters. |
Work down the criteria one at a time. Ask the student to reason it out rather than recall — “why is there never a long chain of predators?” The cause (the 10% energy loss at each level) is where Approaching and Mastered separate. Naming the trophic levels is Approaching; explaining why the energy runs out is Mastered.
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 | Trophic levels & food webs | NY / Appr / Mast | |
| 2 | Energy flow & the 10% rule | NY / Appr / Mast | |
| 3 | Primary productivity (GPP & NPP) | NY / Appr / Mast | |
| 4 | Biomes, niches & keystone species | NY / Appr / Mast | |
| 5 | Field technique (quadrat & transect survey) | 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.