- Create a diagram of mitosis and explain its role in asexual 
reproduction, which results in offspring with identical genetic information.
- Construct explanations of how genetic information is transferred during meiosis.
- Engage in discussion using models and evidence to explain that sexual reproduction produces offspring that have a new combination of genetic information different from either parent.
- Compare and contrast advantages and disadvantages of asexual and sexual reproduction.

 - Construct an argument based on evidence for how environmental and genetic factors influence the growth of organisms.
- Use various scientific resources to research and support the historical findings of Gregor Mendel to explain the basic principles of heredity.
- Use mathematical and computational thinking to analyze data and make predictions about the outcome of specific genetic crosses (monohybrid Punnett squares) involving simple dominant/recessive traits.
- Debate the ethics of artificial selection (selective breeding, genetic engineering) and the societal impacts of humans changing the inheritance of desired traits in organisms.

 - Communicate through diagrams that chromosomes contain distinct genes, and that each gene holds the instructions for the production of specific proteins, which in turn affects the traits of the individual (not to include transcription or translation).
- Construct scientific arguments from evidence to support claims about the potentially harmful, beneficial, or neutral effects of genetic mutations on organisms.

- Use various scientific resources to analyze the historical findings of Charles Darwin to explain basic principles of natural selection.
- Investigate to construct explanations about natural selection that connect growth, survival, and reproduction to genetic factors, environmental factors, food intake, and interactions with other organisms.

 - Analyze and interpret data (e.g. pictures, graphs) to explain how natural selection may lead to increases and decreases of specific traits in populations over time.
- Construct written and verbal explanations to describe how genetic variations of traits in a population increase some organisms’ probability of surviving and reproducing in a specific environment.
- Obtain and evaluate scientific information to explain that separated populations that remain separated can evolve through mutations to become a new species (speciation).
- Analyze displays of pictorial data to compare embryological and homologous/analogous structures across multiple species to identify evolutionary relationships.