This is the first in a series of posts relating to the life science content standards for grades 5 through 8 of the 2005 National Science Education Standards from the National Research Council. We’ll look at how Real Science-4-Kids (RS4K) teaching materials align with these.

National Science Education Standards; Life Science 1:

STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION IN LIVING SYSTEMS

A.   Living systems at all levels of organization demonstrate the complementary nature of structure and function. Important levels of organization for structure and function include cells, organs, tissues, organ systems, whole organisms, and ecosystems.

B.      All organisms are composed of cells – the fundamental unit of life. Most organisms are single cells; other organisms, including humans, are multi-cellular.

C.      Cells carry on the many functions needed to sustain life. They grow and divide, thereby producing more cells. This requires that they take in nutrients, which they use to provide energy for the work that cells do and to make the materials that a cell or an organism needs.

D.      Specialized cells perform specialized functions in multi-cellular organisms. Groups of specialized cells cooperate to form a tissue, such as a muscle. Different tissues are in turn grouped together to form larger functional units, called organs. Each type of cell, tissue, and organs has a distinct structure and set of functions that serve the organism as a whole.

E.       The human organism has systems for digestion, respiration, reproduction, circulation, excretion, movement, control, and coordination, and for protection from disease. These systems interact with one another.

F.    Disease is a breakdown in structures or functions of an organism. Some diseases are the result of intrinsic failures of the system. Others are the result of damage by infection by other organisms.

Real Science-4-Kids meets this standard in the following ways:

The National Standards for “life science” corresponds with the RS4K Biology series. Because each level of the RS4K curricula covers subjects in the same order (with more depth added for higher levels), the following alignments with the national standards are generally true for Pre-Level I as well as Level I. However, specific examples are taken from Level I texts and workbooks since that age range most closely matches that of the National Standards presented here. Because information is built upon with each chapter, many areas of knowledge in the standards show up in virtually all chapters. However, the key chapters for each section are shown below.

1. The Student Textbook for biology and the corresponding experiments in the Laboratory Workbook have numerous chapters specifically addressing the knowledge listed in section A above. Primary are chapter 1 (Living Creatures), chapter 2 (Cells – The Building Blocks of Life), and chapter 10 (Our Balanced World).
2. Chapter 2 (Cells – The Building Blocks of Life) in the biology texts specifically describe cells as the fundamental unit of life, from single cells to complex, multi-cellular organisms like humans. All subsequent chapters go into more detail.
3. The biology chapters most directly dealing with the functions of cells include: chapter 2 (Cells – The Building Blocks of Life), includes a wonderful illustration page of the small “factory” that is a cell; chapter 3 (Photosynthesis), because it teaches how certain plant cells have the capacity to use the sun’s light as food; and chapter 7 (Protists II), because the text and the related experiments specifically address how a protist performs the function of “eating.”
4. Tissues, organs and general cellular structure are primarily addressed in chapter 2 (Cells – The Building Blocks of Life), and virtually all other chapter contribute more on this subject. For example, chapter 5 (How a Plant Grows) has a section on how a plant receives a signal that gives it instructions for functions such as whether to grow up or down.
5. These systems are covered in depth for certain non-human organisms in chapters 3 (Photosynthesis), 4 (Parts of a Plant), 5 (How a Plant Grows), 6 (Protists I), 7 (Protists II), 8 (The Butterfly Cycle), and 9 (The Frog Life Cycle). Chapter 10 (Our Balanced World) relates information on how systems work together in our environment and how humans interact with the cycles of nature.
6. Diseases are not specifically covered in the textbooks as of July 2009, but subjects not covered by current books will be addressed in either the upcoming Level II Biology materials and/or the “B” series for Pre-Level I and Level I.