Crosscutting Concepts (CCCs):
Guides to Navigating Data 

Patterns
·       Observed patterns of events guide organization of data and prompt questions about relationships and the factors that influence them. (HS-LS2-4), (HS-ESS3-5)

Cause and Effect
·       Observed patterns of events guide organization of data and prompt questions about relationships and the factors that influence them. (HS-LS2-4), (HS-ESS3-5)

Scale, Proportion, and Quantity
·       In considering phenomena, it is critical to recognize what is relevant at different measures of size, time, and energy and to recognize how changes in scale, proportion, or quantity affect a system’s structure or performance.

Systems and System Models
·       Defining the system under study—specifying its boundaries and making explicit a model of that system—provides tools for understanding and testing ideas that are applicable throughout science and engineering.

Energy and Matter
·       Tracking fluxes of energy and matter into, out of, and within systems helps one understand the systems’ possibilities and limitations.

Structure and Function
·       The way in which an object or living thing is shaped and its substructure determine many of its properties and functions.

Stability and Change
​·       For natural and built systems alike, conditions of stability and determinants of rates of change or evolution of a system are critical elements of study.

Interrogating HABs Data 

• What patterns do we see in the data about when and where harmful algal “blooming” occurs? 
• What are the factors that influence the formation of HABs? 
• What other interconnected systems data should we investigate to uncover these patterns?

 

• Which parameters correlate to harmful algal blooms? 
• What effects do the cyanotoxins cause within other living systems? 
• What are the mechanisms for these effects? 

• What is the scale of the harmful algal blooms -- locally, regionally, nationally, and globally? How long have they occurred on Planet Earth? 
• Has energy transfer affected the scale, proportion, and quantity of HABs occurring on Earth?

• Is a harmful algal bloom a closed system or an open system? What are the system’s boundaries? 
• Which internal or external schema should be included in an overall system model?

• Can data be accessed to track fluxes of energy and matter into, out of, and within the systems to help us understand the systems’ possibilities and limitations?

• What are the structures and substructures of a harmful algal bloom? 
• What are the properties of those structures? How do they function?

 
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• Being a 3.5 billion year old organism thought to be responsible for the great oxygenation event in early Earth, have harmful algal blooms changed over time? If so, how have they changed? Why have they changed?