This packet is everything a parent or guide needs to assess Unit 07 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 building a food web and predicting what happens when the system shifts.
By the end of the Ecosystems & Interdependence unit, a student should be able to:
Six criteria, each judged Not yet / Approaching / Mastered (Page 3).
Build a food web; model an ecosystem-in-a-jar.
The student traces energy from the sun upward (Page 4).
Roles, the food web, and the what-if predictions 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 build the food web and defend how energy flows through 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Roles & feeding | ||
| Producer | plant, food-maker | Makes its own food from sunlight — the base of every food web |
| Consumer | animal that eats others | Gets energy by eating producers or other consumers |
| Decomposer | recycler | Breaks down dead things and returns nutrients to the soil |
| Food web | feeding network | Many food chains linked — all the who-eats-whom paths at once |
| Energy & change | ||
| Food chain | single feeding path | One straight line of who eats whom, sun to top — not who is biggest |
| Energy flow | energy transfer | Energy moves from the sun up each level and drops along the way |
| Interdependence | living things rely on each other | Change one part and the others feel it |
| Population | group of one species | How many of one kind live in an area; can boom or crash |
| Criterion | Not yet | Approaching | Mastered |
|---|---|---|---|
| Producers, consumers & decomposers | Confuses which organisms make food and which eat it. | Names the roles but mixes up examples. | Identifies producers, consumers, and decomposers and the role each plays. |
| Food chains & food webs | Thinks a food chain shows who is biggest. | Builds a single chain but not a web. | Builds a food chain and a food web and traces who eats whom. |
| Energy flow | Thinks energy is just there. | Knows energy comes from the sun but not that it drops at each level. | Explains how energy flows from the sun through an ecosystem and decreases at each level. |
| Interdependence & change | Thinks removing one animal changes little. | Sees links but cannot predict a ripple effect. | Predicts how a population changes when one part of the system shifts. |
| Lab technique (food web / ecosystem-in-a-jar) | Lists organisms without connecting them. | Builds a model but does not track how the parts depend on each other. | Models a small ecosystem and observes how its living parts depend on each other. |
| 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 ripple effect: mastery predicts what happens elsewhere when one part shifts. Ask “if the hawks left, what happens to the rabbits — and then the grass?”
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 | Producers, consumers & decomposers | NY / Appr / Mast | |
| 2 | Food chains & food webs | NY / Appr / Mast | |
| 3 | Energy flow | NY / Appr / Mast | |
| 4 | Interdependence & change | NY / Appr / Mast | |
| 5 | Lab technique (food web / ecosystem-in-a-jar) | 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.