Unit Plan
CK-12 Foundation

Ck 12: Life Science: Population Growth Patterns

For Students 6th - 8th
[Free Registration/Login may be required to access all resource tools.] What does population growth mean? You can probably guess that it means the number of individuals in a population is increasing. The population growth rate tells you...
Unit Plan
CK-12 Foundation

Ck 12: Life Science: Importance of Biodiversity

For Students 6th - 8th
[Free Registration/Login may be required to access all resource tools.] Biodiversity is a measurement of the amount of variation of the species in a given area. More specifically, biodiversity can be defined as the variety of life and...
Unit Plan
CK-12 Foundation

Ck 12: Life Science: Limiting Factors to Population Growth

For Students 6th - 8th
[Free Registration/Login may be required to access all resource tools.] For a population to be healthy, factors such as food, nutrients, water and space, must be available. Limiting factors are resources or other factors in the...
Unit Plan
CK-12 Foundation

Ck 12: Life Science: Digestive System Organs

For Students 6th - 8th
[Free Registration/Login may be required to access all resource tools.] The mouth and stomach are just two of the organs of the digestive system. Other digestive system organs are the esophagus, small intestine, and large intestine....
Unit Plan
CK-12 Foundation

Ck 12: Life Science: Nonrenewable Resources

For Students 6th - 8th
[Free Registration/Login may be required to access all resource tools.] A nonrenewable resource is a natural resource that is consumed or used up faster than it can be made by nature. Two main types of nonrenewable resources are fossil...
Unit Plan
CK-12 Foundation

Ck 12: Life Science: Vitamins and Minerals

For Students 6th - 8th
[Free Registration/Login may be required to access all resource tools.] Vitamins and minerals are also nutrients. They do not provide energy, but they are needed for good health. Learn more about vitamins and minerals in this learning...
Unit Plan
CK-12 Foundation

Ck 12: Life Science: Reproductive Behavior of Animals

For Students 6th - 8th
[Free Registration/Login may be required to access all resource tools.] Some of the most important animal behaviors involve mating. Mating is the pairing of an adult male and female to produce young. Adults that are most successful at...
Unit Plan
CK-12 Foundation

Ck 12: Life Science: Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection

For Students 6th - 8th
[Free Registration/Login may be required to access all resource tools.] Do you ever wonder why some birds are big like ostriches and some birds are small like robins? Or why a lion has a mane while a leopard has spots? In the 19th...
Unit Plan
CK-12 Foundation

Ck 12: Life Science: Structural Evidence for Evolution

For Students 6th - 8th
[Free Registration/Login may be required to access all resource tools.] Even though two different species may not look similar, they may have similar internal structures that suggest they have a common ancestor. That means both evolved...
Unit Plan
CK-12 Foundation

Ck 12: Life Science: Human Population

For Students 6th - 8th
[Free Registration/Login may be required to access all resource tools.] How quickly is the human population growing? If we look at worldwide human population growth from 10,000 BCE through to today, our growth looks like exponential...
Unit Plan
CK-12 Foundation

Ck 12: Life Science: Taste and Smell

For Students 6th - 8th
[Free Registration/Login may be required to access all resource tools.] Imagine you open a gallon of milk, and you suddenly smell a foul odor. Your sense of smell has informed you that the milk has spoiled. So you pour the spoiled milk...
Unit Plan
CK-12 Foundation

Ck 12: Life Science: Mass Extinctions

For Students 6th - 8th
[Free Registration/Login may be required to access all resource tools.] An organism goes extinct when all of the members of a species die out and no more members remain. Extinctions are part of natural selection. Species often go extinct...
Unit Plan
CK-12 Foundation

Ck 12: Life Science: Innate Behavior of Animals

For Students 6th - 8th
[Free Registration/Login may be required to access all resource tools.] Many animal behaviors are ways that animals act naturally. They are not learned behaviors. Cats are natural-born hunters. They don't need to learn how to hunt....
Unit Plan
CK-12 Foundation

Ck 12: Life Science: Cyclic Behavior of Animals

For Students 6th - 8th
[Free Registration/Login may be required to access all resource tools.] Many animal behaviors change in a regular way. They go through cycles. Some cycles of behavior repeat each year. Other cycles of behavior repeat every day. Learn...
Unit Plan
CK-12 Foundation

Ck 12: Life Science: Flow of Energy

For Students 6th - 8th
[Free Registration/Login may be required to access all resource tools.] When an herbivore eats a plant, the energy in the plant tissues is used by the herbivore. Every time energy is transferred from one organism to another, there is a...
Unit Plan
CK-12 Foundation

Ck 12: Life Science: Competition

For Students 6th - 8th
[Free Registration/Login may be required to access all resource tools.] Ecology is the study of how living organisms interact with each other and with their environment. Organisms interact with each other through various mechanisms, one...
Unit Plan
CK-12 Foundation

Ck 12: Life Science: Food Chains and Food Webs: Food Webs

For Students 6th - 8th
[Free Registration/Login may be required to access all resource tools.] Energy must constantly flow through an ecosystem for the system to remain stable. What exactly does this mean? Essentially, it means that organisms must eat other...
Unit Plan
CK-12 Foundation

Ck 12: Life Science: Touch

For Students 6th - 8th
[Free Registration/Login may be required to access all resource tools.] It might sound good to you to have a condition where you feel no pain. But actually this type of condition would be very dangerous. What would happen if you strained...
Unit Plan
CK-12 Foundation

Ck 12: Life Science: Succession

For Students 6th - 8th
[Free Registration/Login may be required to access all resource tools.] Ecosystems are "dynamic." This means that ecosystems change over time. Both natural forces and human actions cause ecosystems to change. Learn more about succession...
Unit Plan
CK-12 Foundation

Ck 12: Life Science: Influences on Darwin

For Students 6th - 8th
[Free Registration/Login may be required to access all resource tools.] When Darwin returned to England at the end of his voyage, he did not rush to announce his discoveries. He did not want to present any ideas unless he had strong...
Unit Plan
CK-12 Foundation

Ck 12: Life Science: Role of Amphibians

For Students 6th - 8th
[Free Registration/Login may be required to access all resource tools.] Humans have used amphibians for a number of purposes for thousands of years, if not longer. Amphibians play significant roles in many food webs and are thus an...
Unit Plan
CK-12 Foundation

Ck 12: Life Science: Mollusks

For Students 6th - 8th
[Free Registration/Login may be required to access all resource tools.] Mollusks are invertebrates that usually have a hard shell, a mantle, and a radula. Learn more about mollusks in this learning module produced by CK-12.
Unit Plan
CK-12 Foundation

Ck 12: Life Science: Outdoor Air Pollution

For Students 6th - 8th
[Free Registration/Login may be required to access all resource tools.] Air pollution is due to chemical substances and particles released into the air mainly by human actions. This pollution affects entire ecosystems around the world....
Unit Plan
CK-12 Foundation

Ck 12: Life Science: Human Vision

For Students 6th - 8th
[Free Registration/Login may be required to access all resource tools.] Sight, or vision, is the ability to see light. It depends on the eyes detecting light and forming images. It also depends on the brain making sense of the images, so...