• Three points: sound reasoning; demonstration of excellent speaking skills

 

• Two points: adequate reasoning; fair speaking skills

 

• One point: adequate reasoning; poor speaking skills

 
You can ask your students to contribute to the assessment rubric by determining criteria for excellent speaking skills.

Benchmark 6-8:
Knows that organisms can react to internal and environmental stimuli through behavioral response (e.g., plants have tissues and organs that react to light, water, and other stimuli; animals have nervous systems that process and store information from the environment), which may be determined by heredity or from past experience.

Benchmark 9-12:
Knows how the interrelationships and interdependencies among organisms generate stable ecosystems that fluctuate around a state of rough equilibrium for hundreds or thousands of years (e.g., growth of a population is held in check by environmental factors such as depletion of food or nesting sites, increased loss due to larger numbers of predators or parasites).

Grade level: 6-8, 9-12
Subject area: life science
Standard:
Knows about the diversity and unity that characterize life.
Benchmarks:
Benchmark 6-8:
Knows evidence that supports the idea that there is unity among organisms despite the fact that some species look very different (e.g., similarity of internal structures in different organisms, similarity of chemical processes in different organisms, evidence of common ancestry).

Benchmark 9-12:
Knows how organisms are classified into a hierarchy of groups and subgroups based on similarities that reflect evolutionary relationships (e.g., shared derived characteristics inherited from a common ancestor; degree of kinship estimated from the similarity of DNA sequences).

Grade level: 6-8, 9-12
Subject area: science
Standard:
Understands the nature of scientific inquiry.
Benchmarks:
Benchmark 6-8:
Understands the nature of scientific explanations (e.g., emphasis on evidence; use of logically consistent arguments; use of scientific principles, models, and theories; acceptance or displacement based on new scientific evidence).

Benchmark 9-12:
Understands the use of hypotheses in science (e.g., selecting and narrowing the focus of data; determining additional data to be gathered; guiding the interpretation of data).

Benchmark 9-12:
Knows that scientists conduct investigations for a variety of reasons (e.g., to discover new aspects of the natural world, to explain recently observed phenomena, to test conclusions of prior investigations, to test the predictions of current theories).