The Next Generation Science Standards outline a progression of systems-related understandings and skills through the grades. You can apply some of the tools and media you have encountered in this lesson, or adapt these approaches to use with other relevant media, to guide your students through the appropriate stage of this progression. This and the following screens trace this progression through the grade bands.

In grades K-2, students understand objects and organisms can be described in terms of their parts; and systems in the natural and designed world have parts that work together.

—Next Generation Science Standards, Crosscutting Concept 4

Lesson idea: Show Clem Marvels at a Mangrove or Modeling Truss Structures (Firth of Forth Cantilever Bridge). Ask students to create a list of the animals and plants that are part of the mangrove ecosystem, or the parts of the truss structure. Then place the parts they listed on a connection circle diagram. Ask students to describe how to place arrows to indicate which parts that affect each other, or "work together."