Life Science: Biology · Natural Selection and Evolution

HS-LS4-1Evidence for Common Ancestry

Performance expectation

Communicate scientific information that common ancestry and biological evolution are supported by multiple lines of empirical evidence.

What NYSED says about assessing it

Clarification statement

Emphasis is on a conceptual understanding of the role each line of evidence has relating to common ancestry and biological evolution. Examples of evidence could include similarities in DNA sequences, anatomical structures, and order of appearance of structures in embryological development.

The three dimensions

Every item written to HS-LS4-1 has to assess all three dimensions together, not the content alone. This is the structural change that made older practice material stop matching the exam.

Science & engineering practice

Obtaining, Evaluating, and Communicating Information

Disciplinary core ideas
  • LS4.A: Evidence of Common Ancestry and Diversity
Crosscutting concepts
  • Patterns

Related performance expectations

Generate a cluster for HS-LS4-1

Phenomenon stimulus, connected items across the required types, answer key, rubric and figures drawn deterministically from a structured spec — in the format your students will sit.