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Unit 1 Pre-Assessment

Word Bank:
Biodiversity describes the different varieties of plants and animals in a habitat.
Colony is a group of living things or people that settle in an area.
Question 1: If you were to create bio-diverse environment, what would you include and why?

Question 2: What makes a good colony and why?

Question 3: What does balance look like in a community?

Unit 1 Pre-Assessment: Teacher Interview Guide

Start: Teacher reminds student that biodiversity describes the different varieties of plants and animals in a habitat, and that a colony is a
group of living things or people that settle in an area.
Question 1: If you were to create bio-diverse environment, what would you include and why?
Question 2: What makes a good colony and why?
Question 3: What does balance look like in a community? Review the word balance for adapted version if necessary
Thinking skills: making connections between biodiversity and colonies, recognizing the importance of balance and that there are not a lot of
just one kind of organism.
Assessment Rubric:

Creating a
biodiverse
environment

Beginning: 1 point

Developing: 2 points

Accomplished: 3 points

Demonstrates a rudimentary
understanding of the term
biodiversity by describing an
environment without multiple
levels of the food chain or
being able to support
examples with reasoning.

Demonstrates an adequate
understanding of the term
biodiversity by describing an
environment with some examples of
plants and animals that would live in
a biodiverse environment (1 or 2
levels of the food chain), and is able
to support these choices with
reasoning.

Demonstrates a solid understanding

of the term biodiversity by describing
in detail a variety of plants and
animals (3+ levels of the food chain)
that would live in a biodiverse
environment, and explaining why
each example was chosen. Student
describes links between each
member of the habitat and how they
support each other.

What makes a
good colony
and why?

Demonstrates a rudimentary
understanding of the term
colony and is unable to
describe that what makes a
colony good is that there are
members with different roles
that support the greater
good.

Demonstrates an adequate
understanding of the term colony by
giving a general description of a
community of organisms or people.
Examples are vague and lack detail
of what makes a colony good. May
make a connection between the
term and something they know.
Example: 13 original colonies.

Demonstrates an understanding of
the term colony and is able to apply
understanding that in a colony the
same kind of organisms or people
have different roles that are needed to
support a healthy community.
Supports example with thoughtful
reasoning and makes connections to
prior understanding. (Example: In an
bee colony all the bees live together
in a hive they make. They live there
and work there. There are many
different bees with different jobs.
There is one queen bee, a few drones
that serve the queen and many
worker bees. Just like in our city we
need people with different jobs like
garbage collectors, doctors, farmers
to all help each other and make a
happy place to live)

What does
balance in a
community
look like?

Gives a short, vague

description of what balance
looks like in a community. Is
unable to give more than
one or two concrete
examples of different roles
in a community.

Describes balance in a community

vaguely. Does not make a link
between balance to biodiversity or a
good colony. Offers limited specific
examples when pushed.

Links the idea of balance in a

community to the idea of a biodiverse
environment and a good colony.
Describes, again, that there are
members with different roles and that
they are all important because if
everyone one did the same thing, no
one would progress because
everyone would have to do every job
in order to survive.