Resources · Mastery

Mastery rubrics.

One rubric per unit, plus the three demonstration rubrics. Every rubric uses the same three levels — Developing, Proficient, Mastery — so the bar is identical for every student.

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How the rubrics work

Decisions against published criteria, three tokens per term for one criterion retry each, separate accommodations/equipment failures/approved absences, and separately reported integration.

Unit rubrics

Each existing unit includes a student learning pathway, five science criteria, separately reported integration and a five-page assessment companion. The inland supplied-data pathway requires equivalent analysis evidence, not a performed field/practical credential. Integration cannot lower the science grade or block a science demonstration pass.

Unit 01

The Ocean Environment

Local light, salinity scales, temperature and oxygen profiles, pressure reference and salt mass balance.

Unit 02

Plankton & Primary Production

Plankton count-volume scaling, primary production and respiration, the microbial loop and carbon budgets.

Unit 03

Marine Plants, Algae & Kelp Forests

Algal and seagrass structure, point-intercept cover, blank-corrected oxygen exchange and carbon-stock limits.

Unit 04

Marine Invertebrates

Phyla and body plans, larval life history, dispersal, conditional survival, settlement and recruitment.

Unit 05

Fish & Sharks

Fish anatomy, buoyancy and gills, teleost/shark osmoregulation, water budgets and morphometric scaling.

Unit 06

Marine Reptiles, Birds & Mammals

Source-based tetrapod adaptations, supplied cooling/track records and encounter rates; no physiological imitation.

Unit 07

Ocean Ecosystems

Complete inland six-quadrat investigation, area-normalized density and diversity, food webs and chemosynthesis.

Unit 08

Humans & the Ocean

Catch versus stock and CPUE, uncertainty, carbonate chemistry and conservation; no validated-stock-assessment claim.

Demonstration rubrics

Use supervised evidence, the learner's own reasoning and fresh transfer with approved accommodations. Label image/data analysis separately from any actually observed practical skill; practice answers are not a secure examination.

Demonstration

Specimen-identification defense

Identifying marine specimens, naming their adaptations, and defending the structure-function and classification calls out loud.

Demonstration

Timed oceanographic data reading

Interpreting real ocean data — temperature-salinity profiles, tide tables, plankton counts — against the clock.

Demonstration

Oral lab-notebook defense

Standing behind your recorded methods, data, and reasoning out loud.