LS1.C: Organization for Matter and Energy Flow in Organisms
How do organisms obtain and use the matter and energy they need to live and grow?
- Introduction to LS1.C
- K-12 Progression and Grade Band End Points for LS1.C
- Performance Expectations Associated with LS1.C
- Additional Resources for LS1.C
Introduction to LS1.C
from A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas (page 147)
Sustaining life requires substantial energy and matter inputs. The complex structural organization of organisms accommodates the capture, transformation, transport, release, and elimination of the matter and energy needed to sustain them. As matter and energy flow through different organizational levels—cells, tissues, organs, organisms, populations, communities, and ecosystems—of living systems, chemical elements are recombined in different ways to form different products. The result of these chemical reactions is that energy is transferred from one system of interacting molecules to another.
In most cases, the energy needed for life is ultimately derived from the sun through photosynthesis (although in some ecologically important cases, energy is derived from reactions involving inorganic chemicals in the absence of sunlight— e.g., chemosynthesis). Plants, algae (including phytoplankton), and other energy-fixing microorganisms use sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide to facilitate photosynthesis, which stores energy, forms plant matter, releases oxygen, and maintains plants’ activities. Plants and algae—being the resource base for animals, the animals that feed on animals, and the decomposers—are energy-fixing organisms that sustain the rest of the food web.
K-12 Progression and Grade Band End Points for LS1.C
from NGSS Appendix E: Disciplinary Core Idea Progressions
| K-2 | 3-5 | 6-8 | 9-12 |
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Grade Band Endpoints for LS1.C
By the end of grade 2. All animals need food in order to live and grow. They obtain their food from plants or from other animals. Plants need water and light to live and grow.
By the end of grade 5. Animals and plants alike generally need to take in air and water, animals must take in food, and plants need light and minerals; anaerobic life, such as bacteria in the gut, functions without air. Food provides animals with the materials they need for body repair and growth and is digested to release the energy they need to maintain body warmth and for motion. Plants acquire their material for growth chiefly from air and water and process matter they have formed to maintain their internal conditions (e.g., at night).
By the end of grade 8. Plants, algae (including phytoplankton), and many microorganisms use the energy from light to make sugars (food) from carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and water through the process of photosynthesis, which also releases oxygen. These sugars can be used immediately or stored for growth or later use. Animals obtain food from eating plants or eating other animals. Within individual organisms, food moves through a series of chemical reactions in which it is broken down and rearranged to form new molecules, to support growth, or to release energy. In most animals and plants, oxygen reacts with carbon-containing molecules (sugars) to provide energy and produce carbon dioxide; anaerobic bacteria achieve their energy needs in other chemical processes that do not require oxygen.
By the end of grade 12. The process of photosynthesis converts light energy to stored chemical energy by converting carbon dioxide plus water into sugars plus released oxygen. The sugar molecules thus formed contain carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen; their hydrocarbon backbones are used to make amino acids and other carbon-based molecules that can be assembled into larger molecules (such as proteins or DNA), used for example to form new cells. As matter and energy flow through different organizational levels of living systems, chemical elements are recombined in different ways to form different products. As a result of these chemical reactions, energy is transferred from one system of interacting molecules to another. For example, aerobic (in the presence of oxygen) cellular respiration is a chemical process in which the bonds of food molecules and oxygen molecules are broken and new compounds are formed that can transport energy to muscles. Anaerobic (without oxygen) cellular respiration follows a different and less efficient chemical pathway to provide energy in cells. Cellular respiration also releases the energy needed to maintain body temperature despite ongoing energy loss to the surrounding environment. Matter and energy are conserved in each change. This is true of all biological systems, from individual cells to ecosystems.