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Which disease is the biggest issue in your community? Students write an explanation/rationale for a selected disease, and create a Public Service Announcement that educates the community about disease prevention or treatment.

After reading about the use of crickets for human consumption as a food source, students write a response to the following question: How can the addition of crickets make school lunches more nutritious? Students will apply what they have learned about digestion, macronutrients, and human energy needs in order to write an informational paragraph or essay about why crickets are a good food source and can make school lunches more nutritious.

If the continents moved over time, how an why could this have occurred? What can we investigate further that might provide clues about how and why the continents moved?

Alfred Wegener thought that the jigsaw puzzle appearance of continents,  as well as identical fossils and geographic formations, could be explained by the existence of a supercontinent in the ancient past that split apart over time. His theory, continental drift, was widely rejected and ridiculed because he could not explain how and why the massive continents could have moved. Additionally, Wegener also predicted that volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and mountain building could be explained by the continents moving.

In this unit, your task is to conduct investigations and collect evidence that will uncover the mystery of how and why the continents could have moved. Be sure to consider Wegener’s prediction that continental movement is associated with volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and mountain building. 

In this performance task, students use evidence to create and justify a timeline of the history of life on Earth.

How does the invasion of zebra mussels in the Hudson River affect one biotic or abiotic factor in the river ecosystem? To answer this question, students write a scientific explanation using evidence from texts, videos, and secondary data sources, along with sound scientific reasoning and logic, in order to support their claim.

This performance task is meant to build upon students' prior ideas and what they learn about the universe and celestial bodies. We have designed the unit so students have opportunities to explore and revise/add to the performance task at multiple points, allowing them to apply and evaluate their own understandings about the concepts covered in Unit 1.

In this performance task, students apply their knowledge of the different ways that the body maintains homeostasis, in order to determine the cause for a marathon runner's collapse.

What would happen if an asteroid hit the Earth and changed its tilt? What if the Earth stopped spinning?
Which one of these scenarios would you like to have your classmates investigate and make predictions about? Using materials provided by your teacher and any other teacher approved materials you can gather at home, create a model that explains two of the celestial phenomena you studied in this unit. This model should also allow you and others to make predictions about one of the scenarios/questions above or any other interesting scenarios/questions you can come up with yourself.

In this unit you learned about various natural hazards and how they happen. Use your understandings of these phenomena to make a prediction of which natural disasters are likely to occur New York City? You will then describe the steps residents of NYC should take to prepare for this natural disaster. Additionally, in order to minimize human contributions to extreme weather events create a plan for minimizing your carbon footprint and share it with members of your community.

In this unit, students study an urban pest?lice, roaches, bed bugs, or mosquitoes?and develop a plan for getting rid of this pest. The plan should detail a specific pest management strategy, taking into account science concepts from all of Living Environment that are relevant to the plan. Students then present their plans to someone in their family or in the community, and get their feedback on the plan.