Primate Pros: Education Standards
Education Standards for
Become a Primate Pro...Sort Of
Virtual Flashcards
Our goal is to provide lessons that are aligned to standards and ready to go for the classroom. We have chosen the grade levels we think best align with the original lesson’s objectives. All our lessons are designed to be accessible by all grade levels, with your creative adaptations, as needed. If you do not see your grade level standards, the lesson can still be used based on your students’ abilities and interests. Please use any lesson you feel appropriate in your classroom!
We selected seventh-grade standards since, in seventh grade, students are building upon their understanding of the natural world and the ways in which all living things exist within their ecosystems. In particular, the seventh-grade standards push students to explore how outside disruptions (human or natural) affect ecosystems, and use data to create plans for protecting ecosystems from such disruptions. This lesson works especially well with these standards because it provides an opportunity to explore the different conversation statuses of various primates and the specific threats they face.
Below, also find elementary grade standards for younger grades.
Middle Grade-7th Grade Standards
7.MS-LS1-4. Construct an explanation based on evidence for how characteristic animal behaviors and specialized plant structures increase the probability of successful reproduction of animals and plants.
7.MS-LS2-1. Analyze and interpret data to provide evidence for the effects of periods of abundant and scarce resources on the growth of organisms and the size of populations in an ecosystem.
7.MS-LS2-2. Describe how relationships among and between organisms in an ecosystem can be competitive, predatory, parasitic, and mutually beneficial and that these interactions are found across multiple ecosystems.
7.MS-LS2-4. Analyze data to provide evidence that disruptions (natural or human-made) to any physical or biological component of an ecosystem can lead to shifts in all its populations.
7.MS-LS2-5. Evaluate competing design solutions for protecting an ecosystem. Discuss benefits and limitations of each design.
Know
7.MS-LS1-4
Standard bottom line: Explain how specific behavior helps animals reproduce.
Behaviors that led to reproductive success include courting rituals, territorial display, parental care.
7.MS-LS2-1
Standard bottom line: Resource abundance or scarcity impacts organisms’ ability to grow and reproduce.
Ecosystems are made up of all living and nonliving things in an area.
Organisms rely on other living and nonliving things for growth and survival.
Resources include food, water, space.
7.MS-LS2-2
Standard bottom line: Differentiate between types of interactions and describe when and why they occur.
Key Vocabulary:
Competitive Relationships: Understand that organisms often compete for limited resources like food, water, and space. Competition can happen within a species or between different species.
Predatory Relationships: Know that in a predator-prey relationship, one organism (the predator) hunts and consumes another (the prey) to survive, affecting population balance within an ecosystem.
Parasitic Relationships: Recognize that parasitism involves one organism (the parasite) benefiting at the expense of another organism (the host), often weakening but not necessarily killing the host.
Mutually Beneficial (Mutualistic) Relationships: Understand that in mutualism, both organisms benefit from the relationship, such as bees pollinating flowers while feeding on nectar.
7.MS-LS2-4.
Standard bottom line: Disruptions in an ecosystem cause shifts in the population within the ecosystem.
Ecosystem Disruptions can be natural disruptions, such as fires, floods, droughts, and volcanic eruptions and human-made disruptions, including pollution, deforestation, habitat destruction, climate change, and the introduction of invasive species.
7.MS-LS2-5.
Standard bottom line: evaluate a solution for protecting an ecosystem.
Protecting ecosystems preserves biodiversity, maintains ecosystem services, and supports human, animal, and environmental health.
Different solutions of protection depend on the type of ecosystem and the threat it faces.
Show
7.MS-LS1-4
Cite Evidence provided in Primate Profile to describe how certain behavior increases reproductive success.
Create Model to show how specific behavior attracts mates or protects young (for example, the group hierarchy).
7.MS-LS2-1
Display data provided in Primate Profile using charts or graphs.
Case Studies: Analyze data in Primate Profile to understand how real populations are affected by resource availability.
Provide Evidence: Identify a Primate’s Conservation Status and analyze data to describe the cause.
Making Predictions: Analyze data to make predictions about how changes in resource availability could affect populations over time, including potential conversation efforts
7.MS-LS2-2
Describe and differentiate varying relationship types as found in a Primate Profile.
Identify similar relationship types from Primate Profiles of primates living in different ecosystems.
Ecosystem Mapping: Have students identify and map examples of different relationships within a particular ecosystem (e.g., forest or ocean), discussing how these interactions maintain balance.
Comparative Analysis: Analyze examples of each type of interaction in various ecosystems to see how similar relationships function in different contexts.
Role-Playing: Create role-play scenarios or simulations where students embody organisms within these interactions to better understand the dynamics of competition, predation, parasitism, and mutualism.
7.MS-LS2-4.
Case Studies of Disrupted Ecosystems: Analyze a Primate Profile and describe a disruption that led to a specific Conservation Status.
Make predictions on how other disruptions would affect an ecosystem, or how to reverse a human disruption.
7.MS-LS2-5.
Case Studies: Cite Primate Profiles of current or past conservation efforts and analyze the impact.
Debates or Presentations: Participate in debates to defend one plan over another, cite evidence to support their argument.
Proficient
Student cites evidence in a Primate Profile to: describe specific behavior in a given primate that helps that animal reproduce.
Student analyzes data regarding resource abundance/scarcity and cite evidence to describe the impact on a specific primate.
Student cites evidence to describe specific ways a primate interacts with other living things in their ecosystem.
Student cites evidence to describe how a specific disruption impacted a group of primates.
Student cites evidence to design a plan of protection for a specific primate or habitat.
Student defends a chosen protecting plan.
Almost
Student may meet some, but not all of the above objectives when citing Primate Profile.
Student may not independently make connections between topics, such as resource availability and a protection plan.
Not Yet
Student reads a Primate Profile without analyzing information, making predictions, describing behavior, analyzing the various cause/effect relationships within an ecosystem, or defending a plan of protection.
Below is a non exhaustive list of more standards aligned to this lesson.
Elementary Grade Standards
3-LS1-1. Use simple graphical representations to show that different types of organisms have unique and diverse life cycles. Describe that all organisms have birth, growth, reproduction, and death in common but there are a variety of ways in which these happen.
3-LS3-1. Provide evidence, including through the analysis of data, that plants and animals have traits inherited from parents and that variation of these traits exist in a group of similar organisms.
3-LS3-2. Distinguish between inherited characteristics and those characteristics that result from a direct interaction with the environment. Give examples of characteristics of living organisms that are influenced by both inheritance and the environment.
3-LS4-2. Use evidence to construct an explanation for how the variations in characteristics among individuals within the same species may provide advantages to these individuals in their survival and reproduction.
3-LS4-3. Construct an argument with evidence that in a particular environment some organisms can survive well, some survive less well, and some cannot survive.
3-LS4-4. Analyze and interpret given data about changes in a habitat and describe how the changes may affect the ability of organisms that live in that habitat to survive and reproduce.
3-LS4-5(MA). Provide evidence to support a claim that the survival of a population is dependent upon reproduction.
4-LS1-1. Construct an argument that animals and plants have internal and external structures that support their survival, growth, behavior, and reproduction.
5-LS2-1. Develop a model to describe the movement of matter among producers, consumers, decomposers, and the air, water, and soil in the environment to (a) show that plants produce sugars and plant materials, (b) show that animals can eat plants and/or other animals for food, and (c) show that some organisms, including fungi and bacteria, break down dead organisms and recycle some materials back to the air and soil.
5-PS3-1. Use a model to describe that the food animals digest (a) contains energy that was once energy from the Sun, and (b) provides energy and nutrients for life processes, including body repair, growth, motion, body warmth, and reproduction.
6.MS-LS1-3. Construct an argument supported by evidence that the body systems interact to carry out essential functions of life.
Standards by Brandi Bellacicco, January 2025