LS1: From Molecules to Organisms: Structures and Processes: 
How do organisms live, grow, respond to their environment, and reproduce?

LS1.A: Structure and Function: How do the structures of organisms enable life’s functions?

Learning goals by the end of grade 5: Plants and animals have both internal and external structures that serve various functions in growth, survival, behavior, and reproduction. (Boundary: Stress at this grade level is on understanding the macroscale systems and their function, not microscopic processes.)

LS1.D: Information Processing: How do organisms detect, process, and use information about the environment?

Learning goals by the end of grade 5: Different sense receptors are specialized for particular kinds of information, which may then be processed and integrated by an animal’s brain, with some information stored as memories. Animals are able to use their perceptions and memories to guide their actions. Some responses to information are instinctive—that is, animals’ brains are organized so that they do not have to think about how to respond to certain stimuli.

Ocean Literacy Principles

Principle 5: The ocean supports a great diversity of life and ecosystems.

Ocean Literacy Fundamental Concept: Ocean life ranges in size from the smallest living things, microbes, to the largest animal on Earth, blue whales. (OLP5a)

Ocean Literacy Fundamental Concept: Ocean biology provides many unique examples of life cycles, adaptations, and important relationships among organisms (symbiosis, predator-prey dynamics, and energy transfer) that do not occur on land. (OLP5d)

Principle 6: The ocean and humans are inextricably interconnected.

Ocean Literacy Fundamental Concept: Humans affect the ocean in a variety of ways. Laws, regulations, and resource management affect what is taken out and put into the ocean. Human development and activity leads to pollution (point source, non-point source, and noise pollution), changes to ocean chemistry (ocean acidification), and physical modifications (changes to beaches, shores, and rivers). In addition, humans have removed most of the large vertebrates from the ocean. (OLP6d)

These concepts will be explored in this unit through the following activities and investigations: