Standards

Life Has a History meets the following standards for grades K-4, 5-8, and 9-12.

National Standards K-4

Content Standard C Life Science: The Characteristics of Organisms

• Plants and animals closely resemble their parents.
• Many characteristics of an organism are inherited from the parents of the organism, but other characteristics result from an individual's interactions with the environment.

Content Standard D Earth Science: Properties of Earth Materials

• Fossils provide evidence about the plants and animals that lived long ago and the nature of the environment at that time.

National Standards 5-8

Content Standard C Life Science: Diversity and Adaptations of Organisms

• Millions of species of animals, plants, and microorganisms are alive today. Although different species might look dissimilar, the unity among organisms becomes apparent from an analysis of internal structures, the similarity of their chemical processes, and the evidence of common ancestry.
• Biological evolution accounts for the diversity of species developed through gradual processes over many generations. Species acquire many of their unique characteristics through biological adaptation, which involves the selection of naturally occurring variations in populations. Biological adaptations include changes in structures, behaviors, or physiology that enhance survival and reproductive success in a particular environment.
• Extinction of a species occurs when the environment changes and the adaptive characteristics of a species are insufficient to allow its survival. Fossils indicate that many organisms that lived long ago are extinct. Extinction of species is common; most of the species that have lived on the earth no longer exist.

Content Standard D Earth Science: Earth's history

• Fossils provide important evidence of how life and environmental conditions have changed.

National Standards 9-12

Content Standard C Life Science: Biological Evolution

• Natural selection and its evolutionary consequences provide a scientific explanation for the fossil record of ancient life forms, as well as for the striking molecular similarities observed among the diverse species of living organisms.
• The millions of different species of plants, animals, and microorganisms that live on Earth today are related by descent from common ancestors.

You may want to look at the entire National Science Education Standards.

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