Core Curriculum for the Living Environment


The NYS learning standards for MST states: "Students will understand and apply scientific concepts, principles, and theories pertaining to the physical setting and living environment and recognize the historical developmentof ideas in science."

The courses designed using the Living Environment Core Curriculum are expected to prepare students to explain, both accurately and with appropriate depth, the most important
ideas about our living environment.
Core curriculum for the Living Environment covers standards 1 and 4 of the NYS Learning Standards for Math, Science and Technology.

Standard 1

Students will use mathematical analysis, scientific inquiry, and engineering design, as appropriate, to pose questions, seek answers, and develop solutions.

Key Ideas
  1. The central purpose of scientific inquiry is to develop explanations of natural phenomena in a continuing and creative process
  2. Beyond the use of reasoning and consensus, scientific inquiry involves the testing of proposed explanations involving the use of conventional techniques and procedures and usually requiring considerable ingenuity
  3. The observations made while testing proposed explanations, when analyzed using conventional and invented methods, provide new insights into natural phenomena

Standard 4

Students will understand and apply scientific concepts, principles, and theories pertaining to the physical setting and living environment and recognize the historical development of ideas in science.

Key Ideas
  1. Living things are both similar to and different from each other and from nonliving things
  2. Organisms inherit genetic information in a variety of ways that result in continuity of structure and function between parents and offspring
  3. Individual organisms and species change over time
  4. The continuity of life is sustained through reproduction and development
  5. Organisms maintain a dynamic equilibrium that sustains life
  6. Plants and animals depend on each other and their physical environment
  7. Human decisions and activities have had a profound impact on the physical and living environment


The Living Environment Core Curriculum

verb.JPG