Skill: write-like-james @ cca3af6 · the build: write-lesson, write-mcqs, write-video-script, write-summary, write-intro @ cca3af6; the non-author review (review-lesson Role B and C, review-questions, review-figures, review-accuracy) applied @ cca3af6; the blind read (two cold readers) is owed
Topic 27 "What a healthy ecosystem looks like, and what people do to it" — your read (8 October 2026)
Skim first
The lessons in teaching order, each with its one rule sentence; then the intro script; then the question types. The review page follows.
The lessons and their rules
| Lesson | Atom | Rule sentence |
|---|---|---|
| L01 The signs of a healthy ecosystem | LIF5-020 | Many different kinds of living things. Clean water. Enough food for every eater. Dead logs and weeds are part of it. |
| L02 Beneficial or harmful: what people do to an ecosystem | LIF5-021 | Beneficial: it keeps or brings back a sign of a healthy ecosystem. Harmful: it takes away a sign of a healthy ecosystem. Beneficial means helpful. |
| L03 Predict what a habitat change does to its populations | LIF5-022 | A population that loses what it needs gets smaller or leaves. The populations that ate it get smaller too. A population that gets what it needs now grows. |
The intro script (120 words, about 60 s)
Here's Clara in the car on the edge of Houston, Texas. Outside, bulldozers push dirt flat for new houses. Her dad says last spring this was a marsh full of frogs and herons. Now the ground is dry, and the frogs and herons are gone. So where did they go, and what happens to them now? All over the country, people drain marshes, cut forests, build dams and clean up rivers. To find out, we will look at what a healthy place for living things looks like, whether people help it or hurt it, and what happens to its animals and plants when it changes. Okay, so are you ready to find out what happens when people change a place?
The question types (from TYPES_G5T27.md)
- Type 1 (easy · MCQ, the four-sign set · 020): a described place: which sign of a healthy ecosystem it shows — many kinds / clean water / enough food / one tempting-wrong fourth
- Type 2 (easy → medium · MCQ, four places (one a drawn table) · 020): which of four places is a healthy ecosystem / shows clean water / is the healthiest / shows the most signs (table) — four places
- Type 3 (easy → medium · MCQ · 020): what a dead log or a weed is in the ecosystem; which sentence about the log is true; what one kind of living thing means for the eaters — four single statements
- Type 4 (medium · MCQ, the claim form · 020): Cora's raked park is wrong. What is the correct reason? — four single-statement reasons
- Type 5 (easy → medium · MCQ · 021): which of four actions is beneficial / harmful to a named ecosystem; why a named action is beneficial / harmful — four actions / four reasons
- Type 6 (medium · MCQ, the four-sign set · 021): which sign the action brings back, keeps or takes away — many kinds / clean water / enough food / one tempting-wrong fourth
- Type 7 (hard · typed and MCQ · 020 / 021 / 022): the coined word from its definition (habitat, harmful typed); the coined word among its sisters from a fresh case (beneficial; population) — habitat, harmful with child spellings / harmful, adapted, beneficial, extinct / a habitat, a food web, a population, an ecosystem
- Type 8 (medium → hard · MCQ, the population set (three with a drawn chain) · 022): a habitat change and one named population: what happens to it (hard: two links chained, or a population outside the chain) — gets smaller / stays the same / grows / changes its body
- Type 9 (hard · MCQ, four populations (three with a drawn chain) · 022): which population grows / gets smaller because it has less food / is first to grow / loses a named food; which sentence says why a population got smaller — four populations / four reasons
- Type 10 (hard · multi-select · 021 / 022): the TWO signs an action keeps; the TWO populations that get smaller because of who eats whom — the four-sign set / four populations on a drawn chain
Three lessons for three atoms, in Miss Acosta's class with Clara.
Clara's class stands between a messy stream and a tidy mowed lawn in an Austin park, and the stream wins: a healthy ecosystem has many different kinds of living things, clean water and enough food for every eater, and dead logs and weeds are part of it (the register's documented belief, "a tidy, park-like ecosystem is a healthy one", is met on the lawn and the same lawn left to grow). "Habitat" is coined here.
On one bank of the Trinity River in Dallas, people dumped paint cans, picked them up, planted trees and (imagine) cut them down; each is helpful or harmful by whether it keeps or brings back a sign of a healthy ecosystem or takes one away, and the helpful kind is coined "beneficial" because TEKS 5.12C names it.
Then the capstone: part of the Everglades drained for farms, traced along who eats whom — the frogs lose their water and get smaller, the herons that ate them go hungry and leave, the dry-ground grasses grow; "population" is coined before the routine. The quiz leads the student through a dam step by step, then asks bare predictions.
A non-author review has been applied (below); two cold readers read the key-less bundle next. Pictures are placeholders until the picture pass.
Questions for James
none
Applied without asking
8 Oct 2026 (the non-author review, same day as the build): "beneficial" is now explained before it is asked — L02's first pair is asked "helpful or harmful?", the coining line follows the helpful case, and the tree pair uses the coined word (article and script); the L01 article recaps "ecosystem" in one line before the word is first used (the recap had sat in a field only you see) and shows the log and the weeds as food and homes before the rule says so; L01's script coins "habitat" in the frame ("The place where the minnow lives, and finds what it needs, is called its habitat"); L03 states the population frame before the frog instance, traces the insects the drawing marks, and says "the herons went hungry" where the script had "they"; the Texas bay bank chain draws only the three populations its item offers; two bank items that re-skinned the lesson's own scenes (the Kansas prairie dogs; the drained wetland with frogs and herons) and the practice FRQ (the Everglades again) are fresh instances; two L03 quiz keys that were the only option saying "or leaves" read "It gets smaller." like their set; three bank items lost absurd distractors; "unmowed" became "left to grow" in a drawing and a why; the blurb's "feel every change" became Grade 3's own sentence, "each change helps some of the living things there and harms others". No key position moved. Record: REVIEW_G5T27_2026-10-08.md.
The lessons
Also on the site
Topic intro and poll · summary and three questions · mixed practice · the PP100 bank · the type sheet
After you answer
Nothing waits on you. The two cold readers read blind/2026-10-08-reviewed/; any key they disagree with is fixed and re-read; then the picture pass starts on the thirteen placeholders, and the five-video batch (built and checked, not sent) goes when you give the Life strand its go.
What the reviews found, and what changed
The non-author review (8 October): guidance, questions, figures, accuracy
Sound teaching, the reviewer said; the three coins are the standards' words and the author's calls stand. Four must-fixes: "beneficial" asked before it was explained (fixed in article and script); "ecosystem" recalled only in a line students never see (one recap line added); a bank drawing that showed pelicans where the item offered gulls (three boxes now); a bank item that was a quiz item's scene with a new ask (re-scened). Seventeen worth-fixing rows, all applied: the dead-log case shown before the rule; "habitat" coined in the frame in the video; the population frame before its instance; the insects traced; "they" named; the river line tied to the rule; the FRQ and two bank items made fresh; two "or leaves" shape tells; a parking lot that grew grass; three absurd distractor sets; a stem whose key needed a stream; "unmowed"; a duplicated fb; the blurb's "feel". Six left as simplifications (the video's unnarrated insect mark; the recall item on "consumer"; the L02 script's three-case run; article lengths; "its producer" as a distractor; seagrass feeding shrimp). The science: every named place and animal survives its claim (the Everglades, the Trinity River, the Elwha, the Cuyahoga; geese and cattails; bass and still water; herring and eagles). Alignment owed: the "ecosystem" recap line and the recall item on "the next link's change" are in the register's words; Topics 23 and 26 were written in parallel, and their lexicon sentences are read against these lines in a later pass.
The bank, in brief
51 items in content/G5T27_pp100_bank.py: 47 four-option MCQs, two typed words (habitat, harmful) and two two-of-four selects. Per atom: LIF5-020 16 · LIF5-021 17 · LIF5-022 18. Easy 16, medium 18, hard 17, sorted easy to hard and rising with the atom's place in the topic. MCQ keys A 10 · B 13 · C 17 · D 7. Ten question types, one exemplar each on the type sheet: the sign a place shows; the healthy place of four; what a dead log or weed is; the belief's correct reason (Cora); the beneficial or harmful action of four, and why; the sign an action touches; the terms; one population's change; which population grows, loses food, grows first; the set answers. Every scene is fresh against the lessons, the quizzes and the practice after this pass.
The records, in full
The non-author review and fix pass (8 October)
Skill: review-lesson (Role B, the guidance reviewer, and Role C, the adjudicator's fix pass; Role A is NOT run here — two cold readers follow) → review-questions, review-figures, review-accuracy @ cca3af6
Grade 5 Topic 27 — What a healthy ecosystem looks like, and what people do to it — non-author review and fix pass (8 October 2026)
1. The takeaway, in plain words
The topic is sound and teaches the three atoms cleanly: the stream against the lawn, four things people did to one river bank, and the drained Everglades traced along who eats whom. The three coined words are the standards' words and the author's calls (three coins; the forest edge moved to the bank; n p p n on one river; "Let's look." dropped) all stand. Nothing an ecologist would strike at this level; every named animal survives the claim made about it.
Two faults mattered. "Beneficial" was asked before it was explained: L02's first two cases asked "Is dumping the cans beneficial or harmful?" four lines before the line that says what beneficial means (the Grade 4 fault 1, jargon dropped bald, in a milder form). Now the first pair is asked in the plain words "helpful or harmful", the coining line follows the helpful case, and the second pair uses the coined word — article and script alike. One bank drawing contradicted its item: the Texas bay chain drew pelicans as the redfish's eater, but the item's fourth option was gulls at a dump; a child who read the drawing had a third right answer that was not on offer. The chain now draws the three populations in the item, and the gulls sit outside it as the stem says.
Also fixed: "ecosystem" was recalled only in a line students never see (the author's forest field renders inside the For James box); the article now recaps it in one line before the word is first used. L01's rule said dead logs and weeds are food and homes, but no case had shown it; one line at the stream now does. L03's drawing marked the insects GETS SMALLER with no sentence saying why; a line now traces them. L03's script had "the herons ate the frogs, so they went hungry" ("they" could be the frogs). Two quiz keys were the only option with "or leaves" (a shape tell the checker's fixed-set exemption hid); two bank items re-skinned the lesson's own scenes (a Kansas prairie with prairie dogs and hawks, L03-07's scene; the drained wetland with frogs, herons and dry-ground grasses, the worked example); the practice FRQ was the worked example with a new state name; three bank items carried absurd distractors.
Counts: Must-fix 4 · Worth fixing 17 · Simplification-leave 6 · Not an error 5. Every Must-fix and Worth-fixing row is applied below; every gate re-run to its stated result; the blind bundle re-cut; the batch rebuilt and checked, NOT sent.
2. Role A
Not run by this reviewer (the brief: two separate cold readers follow). The bundle for them: blind/2026-10-08-reviewed/BLIND_BUNDLE_G5T27.md — bundled 96 mcq, 3 text, 1 frq, 2 multi; held 102 (the count line matches the earlier cut, so no module is silently absent).
3. Role B — the guidance review, with disposition
Every check was run; a check with no finding is listed as clear.
| part | location | check | the fault | verdict | the rewrite / disposition |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| L02 | article [9], [13]; script beats 2–3 | B1 term before its coining line (ROOT_CAUSES fault 1) | "Is dumping the cans beneficial or harmful…?" asked twice before "we call it beneficial" at [14]. The headache itself asked in plain words ("helped … harmed"). | Must-fix | First pair asked "helpful or harmful?"; verdicts "It is harmful" / "It is helpful"; then the coining line; the tree pair keeps "beneficial or harmful". Script: beat 2 "Is this helpful or harmful? It is harmful…"; beat 3 "…Helpful: it brings back clean water. When people help an ecosystem, we call it beneficial." (150 words; beat 1 trimmed by two words, beat 4 by one). Applied. |
| L01 | article, first use of "ecosystem" at [11] | B1 prerequisite recalled before use | The one-line recap ("An ecosystem is all the living things in a place…") sits in forest, which the builder prints only inside the For James box. A student meets "Is this stream a healthy ecosystem?" with no recap on the page. | Must-fix | New idea line opening "The stream": "The stream is an ecosystem: its living things, together with the water, stones and sunlight they use." (Topic 23's own terms, as a statement, never "is called".) The video's recall is the RECALL_BANK item served before it (ruling 11). Applied. |
| L01 | rule line, second sentence | B1 examples before rules | "Dead logs and weeds are part of a healthy ecosystem: they are food and homes" arrives with no case having shown a log or a weed feeding or housing anything; the headache put the log and the weeds in the scene and then never used them. | Worth fixing | New line after the every-eater line: "Snails eat the weeds, and insects live under the fallen log: the log and the weeds are food and homes." Script unchanged (no words left; the rule slide's chip carries it). Applied. |
| L01 | script beat 2 | B3 explain then label | "The stream is the minnow's habitat: where it lives and finds what it needs." — label first, and not in the coining frame the brief requires. | Worth fixing | "The place where the minnow lives, and finds what it needs, is called its habitat." Applied (148 words after "Yes, it is." became "Yes."). |
| L03 | article [7]–[8] | B3 explain then label | "All the frogs in the wetland are its frog population." used the term one line before "…are called a population." | Worth fixing | The two lines swapped: frame first, the frog instance second. Applied. |
| L03 | article [15]; figure chain_wetland_after; steps table | B6 the drawing shows what the text says | The after-chain marks the insects GETS SMALLER; no sentence traces them (the text follows only frogs → herons). | Worth fixing | New line after the heron line: "The insects ate the water plants, so the insect population got smaller too." Steps table "Who ate them?" cell → "the herons and the insects: they go hungry and get smaller". Applied. The video's rule slide still shows all four marks without narrating the insects: Simplification-leave (148 words; the article carries it). |
| L03 | script beat 3 | B2 named actor (ruling 3) | "The herons ate the frogs, so they went hungry" — the nearest noun is the frogs. | Worth fixing | "…so the herons went hungry, and the heron population got smaller too." Applied (149 words). |
| L03 | article [18] | B1 / B2 a line that does no work where it stands | "Cleaning up a river is beneficial, and the populations that need clean water grow." sat alone after the drained-field photo, with no case and no link to the routine (it exists so "beneficial" is said in L03). | Worth fixing | Moved after the closing return and tied to the rule: "When people clean up a river, that is beneficial, and the populations that need clean water grow." Applied. |
| topic | blurb line 3 | B2 vague verb (ROOT_CAUSES fault 6) | "the living things in those places feel every change" — a feeling verb for a population change. | Worth fixing | "…and each change helps some of the living things there and harms others." (Grade 3 Topic 42's own lexicon sentence, reused.) Applied. |
| L01 | figure verdict_l01 row 4; PP-25 why | B3 one word for one thing | "left unmowed" survived the author's S36 swap to "left to grow" in two places. | Worth fixing | Both → "left to grow". Applied. |
| L01 | structure | B1 forest, trees, forest | Clear: the question at the top, the stream, the imagined algae, the lawn, the lawn left to grow, the strip, the signs table, the rule. | clear | — |
| L02 | structure, S118 | B1 one change per step | Clear: one object (the Trinity River bank), the action the only change, n→p on the same cans, p→n on the same trees. The script's three cases (n p n) leave the planting to the opening picture. | clear | — |
| L03 | structure | B1 routine shown before led | Clear: worked (Everglades) → led (the Elwha dam, four scaffold items) → bare predictions. | clear | — |
| all | staging imperatives | B1 the article never tells the reader to stage it | Clear: "First, ask what the change took away" is the routine's own step (the student's activity), not a staging verb. | clear | — |
| all | sentence atomisation | B2 | Clear after the rows above; longest idea line 22 words; every sentence has a noun subject and a verb (S38 0). | clear | — |
| all | B3 plain English, no figure off-screen | Clear: "stuff" not needed (no "matter" here); no "species", "predator", "non-living"; no reference to a figure not on the page. | clear | — | |
| all | B4 fluency first, term last, no give-away | Clear: every quiz runs sign / sort / routine items then the term last; no stem prints an earlier key beyond the fixed-set ask the rule requires. | clear | — | |
| all | B4 boundary sentence on the page | Clear: the sorting sentence for the near misses (dead wood, raked leaves) is the rule's own second sentence; the mowed-lawn boundary is "A mowed lawn feeds almost nothing." | clear | — | |
| all | B5 fb ≤ 30 words, why ≤ 60, one fact | One fb duplicated (L02-08 fb[0] = fb[2]); the rest clear. | Worth fixing | L02-08 fb[2] → "The sentence says nothing about anyone's food. The dirty water no longer pours in, so clean water comes back." Applied. | |
| all | B6 headache figure | Clear: the opening cartoon shows the scene with no verdict layer; the verdict strip comes after the run. | clear | — | |
| all | B7 meta and register | Clear: no "in this lesson"; the glossary carries three clean definitions, no provenance strings; atoms match the register. The forest field reads as a student line but is printed only to James. | clear | — | |
| recall bank | item 2 (LIF4-024, consumer) | ruling 11: a recall sits before the video that needs it | L01 never says "consumer" or "producer"; the item recalls an idea the lesson does not lean on. | Simplification-leave | Harmless; noted for the author. |
| recall bank | item 5 (LIF5-016) and L01's recap | cross-topic alignment (the brief) | Topic 23's lexicon is now on disk ("All the living things in a place, together with the things that are not alive that they use, are called an ecosystem.") and Topic 26's ("To predict the next link, follow the arrow. Forward, to the eater, the change goes the same way…"). This topic's recap line and its recall item are in the register's plain words, not those sentences. | Not blocked (per the brief) | Recorded for the later alignment pass: L01's new recap line already uses Topic 23's nouns ("the things … they use"); RECALL_BANK[4] should be re-read against Topic 26 L02 once that topic is fixed. Grade 4 Topic 35's food-web sentence and Grade 3 Topic 42's quick-change sentence are reused word for word (checked). |
3b. review-questions (every quiz, practice, recall and bank item, the FRQ, the two multi-selects, the three typed)
Key tells before the pass: KEY TELLS: 0 of 104 MCQs flagged. Checks 1–22 run per item; rows below are the hits, every other item clear.
| item | check | the fault | verdict | disposition |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PP-43 (Texas bay, multi-select) | 10 figure vs options | The chain drew seagrass → shrimp → redfish → pelicans; the options were seagrass / shrimp / redfish / gulls at the dump. A reader of the drawing has three populations that get smaller by who eats whom, and only two are offered. | Must-fix | Chain redrawn with three boxes (seagrass → shrimp → redfish); blind text and alt updated; the gulls stay outside the chain as the stem says. Keys unchanged. |
| PP-46 (Kansas prairie) | fresh instance | The bank's own freshness list bars "Kansas prairie dogs", yet PP-46 was L03-07's scene (Kansas, plowed prairie, prairie dogs, hawks) with a new ask. | Must-fix | Re-scened: an Oklahoma prairie; the grasshoppers that ate the grass; the sparrows that ate the grasshoppers. Key position unchanged. |
| PP-39, PP-50 (drained Louisiana wetland; drained Georgia marsh) | fresh instance | Both were the worked example (frogs, herons that ate the frogs, dry-ground grasses) with a new state name. | Worth fixing | PP-39: minnows, the otters that ate the minnows, water lilies, dry-ground grasses. PP-50: an egret population; "The minnows the egrets ate got fewer." New draw constraint PP-39 ⟂ PP-50 written to the type sheet. Keys unchanged. |
| PR-11 (the FRQ) | fresh instance | The worked example again (a drained marsh, frogs' eggs, herons) in Iowa — a student can recite the article. | Worth fixing | Mosquitoes laid their eggs in the marsh's water, and bats ate the mosquitoes; the model follows. |
| L03-03, L03-07 | 4 / shape tell | The key was the only option reading "It gets smaller or leaves." beside "It grows." / "It stays the same." — twice; the fixed-set exemption hid it from the checker. | Worth fixing | Both keys now "It gets smaller." (the CHANGE3 wording); the fb and why still say "gets smaller or leaves". Key positions unchanged. |
| L03-08 | 1 contrived scenario | A pond filled in "to build a parking lot", then grasses grow on it — a parking lot is paved. | Worth fixing | "…filled in with soil to make a flat field." |
| PP-08 | 4 / shape | The key was the only option with a colon and two clauses; one distractor absurd ("a kind of clean water"). | Worth fixing | Key "The log is food and a home for the forest's living things."; the absurd option → "The log takes food away from the forest's living things." |
| PP-12 | 9 distractors a real student would pick | "dirty water" and "a kind of animal" are not errors a child makes about weeds. | Worth fixing | → "plants that should be pulled out to keep the pond healthy" (the SD-3 belief) and "plants that take food away from the snails". |
| PP-19 | 9 | "too much sunlight for any eater" and "no water for any eater" absurd. | Worth fixing | → "Every eater has plenty of algae to eat." / "The eaters have more food than before." / "The water is too dirty for any eater." |
| PP-28 (Utah campers) | 4 second defensible option | "carry every bit of their trash out" keeps clean water only if the trash would reach water; nothing in the stem said so. | Worth fixing | Stem: "…carry every bit of their trash out of the canyon, so none of it washes into the canyon's stream." |
| L01-10 | 11 one coined term | "its producer" as a distractor for a place — a role word, met in Grade 4. | Simplification-leave | Met word; a child who picks it has confused two Grade 4 words, which the fb corrects. |
| PP-36 (typed harmful) | accept list | check_lessons S30 WARN: no article form. "the harmful" is not a form a child types. | Not an error | Left; the WARN is answered here. |
| the 24 S22 WARNs on L02 stems | 3 the stem names the option set | Every sort stem says "beneficial or harmful?" by rule. | Not an error | The explained WARN the write-mcqs skill predicts. |
| claim string | 22 | One quiz claim (Dev, no) and one bank claim (Cora, correct reason): both on SD-3, the one documented belief. No invented belief anywhere. | clear | — |
| key strings | 18 | Attached B A A A B B; L01 2-opt n y n n y A; L02 b h b b h h h; L03 3-opt 0 1 2 0 1 2 0 1 0; PP100 A 10 · B 13 · C 17 · D 7 — no letter above 35 %, no four alternating. Unchanged by the pass (no key position moved). | clear | — |
3c. review-figures (every rendered figure opened, and the built page)
All 30 figures rendered to PNG in Chrome and opened; every article and quiz route screenshotted at 390 px and 1100 px. The page forces one colour scheme (a dark-scheme shot renders light), so it is shot once.
| figure | finding | check | acted |
|---|---|---|---|
| pp_chain_bay | fourth box "pelicans" not among the item's options (above) | 10 | Acted: three boxes; re-rendered and opened. |
| verdict_l01 | "left unmowed" against the text's "left to grow" | 4 | Acted: re-rendered and opened. |
| steps_table_l03 | "Who ate them?" named the herons only while the chain marks the insects too | 4 | Acted: cell now names both; re-rendered and opened. |
| chain_wetland, chain_wetland_after | arrows point from the food to its eater (Grade 3 Topic 41's convention); tags under the right boxes; "dry-ground grasses" wraps to two lines inside its box; marks under their own boxes | 3, 4, 12 | clear |
| q_chain_river, q_chain_prairie, pp_chain_pond, pp_chain_marsh, pp_chain_woods | item chains carry no change mark; blind text lists boxes and arrow direction only | 10, 16 | clear |
| signs_table, sort_table_l02, q_two_ponds, pp_three_lakes | every cell inside its column; the two item tables' blind text lists cells as data | 16, 17 | clear |
| rule_l01, rule_l02, rule_l03 | the rule text word for word; nothing out of frame | 4, 17 | clear |
| 9 photo and 4 cartoon placeholders | each prints its brief; no note names an item's answer; no person drawn as a glyph | 10 | clear |
| the built pages | placeholders, chains, tables and the verdict strip sit inside their frames at phone width; the quiz repeats the dam chain on its three scaffold items (each item stands alone — fine) | 1, 26 | clear |
3d. review-accuracy (the science, against the register and ordinary ecology)
| claim | verdict | note |
|---|---|---|
| The three signs: many different kinds, clean water, enough food for every eater | Not an error | The register's own three; "every level" rendered as "every eater" (plain). |
| Dead logs and weeds are part of a healthy ecosystem: food and homes | Not an error | The register's counter to SD-3 says exactly this. |
| A mowed lawn feeds almost nothing | Simplification, Leave | The register's sentence. |
| Part of the Everglades was drained for farms; frogs need water for their eggs; herons eat frogs; insects eat water plants; dry-ground grasses take over drained soil | Not an error | True (the Everglades Agricultural Area); every link real. |
| The Trinity River bank in Dallas: dumped on, cleaned up, replanted | Not an error | True of the Trinity River Audubon Center site. |
| Elwha dam blocked salmon; bears ate the salmon; still water above the dam suits bass | Not an error | True (Lake Mills / Lake Aldwell; largemouth bass prefer still water). |
| The Cuyahoga cleaned up, insects then fish then kingfishers return | Not an error | True in outline. |
| Trout lay eggs in fast water over gravel; woodpeckers nest in dead trees; mangrove roots shelter small fish; geese eat cattails and foxes take geese; mice eat acorns and owls eat mice; herring run up Massachusetts rivers and eagles eat them; clams need clean water and gulls eat clams; swallows eat dragonflies; deer graze fresh grass after a burn; mosquitoes lay eggs in standing water and bats eat them; otters eat minnows; egrets eat minnows; sparrows eat grasshoppers | Not an error | Each checked; every named animal survives its claim. |
| "The seagrass feeds the shrimp" | Simplification, Leave | Shrimp feed on seagrass detritus and the life on it; at this level the link is fine. |
| "Dry-ground grasses need dry soil" | Simplification, Leave | Fine for the atom. |
| "Cleaning up a river is beneficial" | Not an error | — |
| Keys | Not an error | No key rewards a wrong claim; the FRQ model is right; PP-50's distractor "needed the water to lay their eggs in" is false of egrets (tree nesters), as the item needs. |
| Terms | Not an error | "habitat" (Arizona), "beneficial" (TEKS 5.12C), "population" (Arizona 5.L4U3.11) — the standards' words, each coined in the frame; "predator / prey" left to Topic 23 (which coins them), "species" avoided. |
4. Items and lines changed (old → new), for the second read
Changed ids (no key position moved anywhere; the blind bundle is fully re-cut, so the readers read everything): L03-03, L03-07 (options wording) · L03-08 (stem) · L02-08 (fb only) · PR-11 (FRQ re-scened) · PP-08, PP-12, PP-19 (options) · PP-25 (why wording) · PP-28 (stem) · PP-39, PP-46, PP-50 (re-scened) · PP-43 (its drawing). Lesson text: L01 article (+2 lines) and script (habitat frame; "Yes."); L02 article ([9], [13]) and script (beats 1–4); L03 article ([7]↔[8]; +1 insects line; the river line moved after the closing return) and script (beat 3); blurb line 3; figures verdict_l01, steps_table_l03, pp_chain_bay; TYPES sheet (constraint numbering corrected: PP-30 ⟂ PP-31, PP-35 ⟂ PR-13; PP-39 ⟂ PP-50 added; exemplars updated).
Declined / left as built: the recall item on "consumer" (harmless); the video's unnarrated insect mark (no words left under the cap; the article carries it); the script's three-case run in L02 (the planting sits in the opening picture); L02 article at 300 words and L01 at 326 (a subtitle or figure every ≤ 5 idea lines; the two added lines are the recap and the dead-log case the rule needs).
5. Gates after the fix pass
build_tools_check_topic.py→ 0 FAIL, 29 WARN (S46 A = 0, B = 0, C = 0, D = 0). WARNs: 10 × S8 beat sentence counts (as the author answered); 19 × S36 unusual words — the author's 18 answered in the build record, plus mosquitoes / mosquito (PR-11: a word every US child knows; the FRQ needs an egg-layer that is not the lesson's frog).build_tools_check_terms.py→ 0 hits (B 0, C 0, D 0).grade5/check_g5_articles.py→ 0 FAIL; articles 326 / 300 / 307 words, scripts 148 / 150 / 149, intro 120, summary 154.check_key_tells.py→KEY TELLS: 0 of 104 MCQs flagged (a: 0, b: 0, c: 0).check_svg_ids.py→ PASS (30 figures, 0 ids).check_lessons.py --adapter tools/check_adapter_g5.json→ 0 FAIL, 83 WARN (S118 silent; S18 / S26 / S30 as answered above and in the build record).build_tools_names.py Clara Cora Dev Acosta→ all INFO / free.- Blind-text grep (figures'
blind=strings and the bundle's[Drawing: …]lines) for grows / smaller / stays / healthy / healthier / beneficial / harmful / more signs / most signs / first / eats / eaten → 0 hits. build_tools_blind_bundle.py … blind/2026-10-08-reviewed→ bundled 96 mcq, 3 text, 1 frq, 2 multi; held 102.build_tools_video_batch.py→ 5 videos, key string B A A A B B;check_brief.py→ INTRO ✓ L01 ✓ L02 ✓ L03 ✓ SUMMARY ✓ (the standing summary/protected note). The batch is NOT sent.
6. For James
Nothing. No finding here would change what a student learns by his answer; every call is recorded above and in REVIEW_NEXT_G5T27.md.
The build record (v1, 8 October)
Skill: course-build → write-lesson (L01 the fact form with the belief met by name; L02 the example-sequence classification lesson; L03 the capstone transformation, worked → led → tested) → write-example-sequence, design-check-sequence, sentence-atomise, write-explanation, write-mcqs (quizzes, attached questions, practice, the recall bank, the PP100 bank and its type sheet); write-intro (the topic intro); write-video-script (three lesson scripts); write-summary (the summary video); review-figures (author self-check on the renders and the built page; the non-author pass is owed) @ cca3af6
Grade 5 Topic 27 — What a healthy ecosystem looks like, and what people do to it — build record (v1, 8 October 2026)
What this is, in plain words
Three short lessons. First, what a healthy place for living things looks like: Clara's class stands between a messy stream and a tidy mowed lawn in an Austin park, and the stream wins, because a healthy ecosystem has many different kinds of living things, clean water and enough food for every eater, and dead logs and weeds are part of it (the register's documented belief, "a tidy, park-like ecosystem is a healthy one", is met by name on the lawn and the same lawn left to grow). Second, how to judge what people do: on one bank of the Trinity River in Dallas, people dumped paint cans, picked them up, planted trees and (imagine) cut them down, and each is beneficial or harmful by whether it keeps or brings back a sign of a healthy ecosystem or takes one away; "beneficial" is coined because TEKS 5.12C names it, with "helpful" as its plain meaning. Third, the capstone: predict what a habitat change does to its populations, worked on the register's own case (part of the Everglades drained for farms) along the who-eats-whom chain — the frogs lose their water and get smaller, the herons that ate them go hungry and leave, the dry-ground grasses grow — then led step by step through a dam, and tested on a cleaned river, a plowed prairie, a filled-in pond and a drained marsh.
Counts
3 lessons · 3 scripts (149, 149, 148 spoken words) + intro (120 words, 2 question marks) + summary (154 words, opens "Here's everything we found out about what a healthy ecosystem looks like, and what people do to it.") · 3 attached questions + the intro's poll + 3 summary questions (attached key string in video order B A A A B B, A 3 of 6) · 30 quiz items (10 + 10 + 10) · 15 practice items (12 MCQ, 1 typed, 1 FRQ, 1 recall-bank-style retrieval trio first) · recall bank 6 items · PP100 bank 51 items (47 four-option MCQs, 2 typed, 2 multi-select; LIF5-020 16, LIF5-021 17, LIF5-022 18; easy 16, medium 18, hard 17; MCQ keys A 10 · B 13 · C 17 · D 7) · 30 figures (17 SVG by code, 9 photo placeholders, 4 cartoon placeholders) · articles 291 / 302 / 293 words (15 / 17 / 14 idea lines, 6 / 6 / 5 figures; longest run of idea lines without a subtitle or figure: 4 / 5 / 4).
Structural decisions (in place of a blueprint)
| Lesson | Title (the skill in student terms) | Headache scene, and who asks | Example sequence | Check type | Video? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| L01 LIF5-020 | The signs of a healthy ecosystem | Clara's class beside a stream in a park in Austin, Texas: a fallen log, weeds, insects skating; behind them a lawn mowed short and tidy. The NARRATOR asks: which place is healthier for living things, the tidy lawn or the messy stream? | Fact form with one judged run (frame "Is this place a healthy ecosystem?"): the stream (yes: many kinds, clear water, every eater fed) → the SAME stream with only algae left (no) → the mowed lawn (no: one kind of grass) → the SAME lawn left to grow for a year (yes). p n n p; both crossings hold their object. "habitat" coined after the stream section. | (a) fluency: which sign (3 opt ×3), is this healthy (yes / no ×4 incl. the near misses), Dev's claim (SD-3), a two-pond table, the term last | video and article |
| L02 LIF5-021 | Beneficial or harmful: what people do to an ecosystem | Clara's class on a path beside the Trinity River in Dallas, Texas: young trees along the bank, old paint cans near the water. The NARRATOR asks which of the things people did here helped the river's living things and which harmed them. | Frame "Is this beneficial or harmful to the river's living things?" on ONE object, the river bank: people dump paint cans (harmful: takes away clean water) → people pick the cans up (beneficial: brings back clean water) → people plant trees (beneficial: brings back many kinds) → imagine people cut the trees down (harmful: takes away many kinds). n p p n. "beneficial" coined after the first pair; the rule is a pair of definitions in one frame. | (a) fluency: beneficial / harmful ×7 incl. the near misses (a dead tree left standing; a woodland raked bare), which sign it brings back ×2, the term's meaning last | video and article |
| L03 LIF5-022 | Predict what a habitat change does to its populations | The Everglades in Florida, no child in the scene: herons wade, frogs sit on lily pads, insects hum. Long ago people drained part of it for farms. The NARRATOR asks what happened to the frogs, the herons that ate them, and the plants. | Worked model on the who-eats-whom chain (water plants → insects → frogs → herons): four questions in order — what the change took away or added; which population needed that; who ate them; which population gets what it needs now. "population" coined before the routine. The rule last. | (b) scaffolded: the dam on the Elwha River step by step (4 items), then bare predictions on fresh cases (the cleaned Cuyahoga, a plowed prairie, a filled-in pond, a drained marsh), the term last | video and article |
One line each, with the reason:
- Three lessons, one per atom, in register order; LIF5-022 closes — each payoff is one clause.
- Openers (ruling 1): every lesson opens on a scene and the narrator asks the question over it; no child voices a line. One named child (Clara) carries L01 and L02; L03's scene has no child, because the Everglades draining is history, not a class trip. Dev speaks only in L01-q6, the one documented belief. Cora speaks only in the bank's one claim item.
- "habitat" coined in L01 — Grade 3 and 4 said "place"; the Arizona standard says "habitats" and LIF5-022's title needs the word; seven letters, so it is the topic's typed term (practice and bank). Reused in L02 ("the trees are the birds' habitat") and L03 ("when a habitat changes").
- "beneficial" coined in L02, "helpful" as its plain meaning — TEKS 5.12C says "beneficial or harmful"; the vault rule Use the exam board's term where the standards name one makes the standards' word the coined one, with the register's plain word beside it. Ten letters, so recalled by MCQ among sister words. "harmful" is an everyday word and is typed in the bank.
- "population" coined in L03 — Arizona 5.L4U3.11 says "populations"; the register's behaviour says "populations"; no earlier grade coined it. Ten letters, recalled by MCQ.
- "ecosystem" and "food web" recalled, never re-coined — Topic 23's and Grade 4 Topic 35's words; one recap line each in the article (L01 forest, L03 article) and a recall-bank item each. Topics 23 and 26 are being written in parallel, so their lexicon sentences were not available; the recap lines use the register behaviours' wording.
- The register's example is the worked case in every lesson — a healthy stream not just algae (LIF5-020); replanting and dumping on one river (LIF5-021); the drained wetland with frogs, wading birds and dry-ground grasses (LIF5-022).
- A population "gets smaller", "leaves" or "grows" — never "crashes" or "booms" (figurative; a ten-year-old reads them literally).
- The who-eats-whom chain is drawn as Grade 3 Topic 41 drew it (the arrow from the food to its eater); change marks under the boxes are a green up-arrow (GROWS), a red down-arrow (GETS SMALLER) or a grey dash (STAYS); item chains never carry a mark.
- The forest-edge case was cut from L03's article — with it the article stood at 388 words; the Everglades carries the worked model, the dam carries the led steps in the quiz, and the forest edge lives in the bank (PP-38) and nowhere else.
- Every lesson gets a video — each shows a change the student should watch happen (the stream's living things fade to algae; the cans lift away and the trees fall; the chain's marks appear link by link).
- The intro is one scene (Clara in the car past bulldozers where a marsh was, on the edge of Houston), two question marks, no coined word, the map line after the question.
Questions for James
None. Every structural choice here either follows a ruling he has given or would not change what a student learns (the coining of "beneficial" follows his exam-term rule; the three coins are the standards' words).
Per-lesson table
| Lesson | Atom | Rule line (lexicon) | Coined term | Script words | Article words | Quiz items | Attached key |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| L01 | LIF5-020 | A healthy ecosystem has many different kinds of living things, clean water, and enough food for every eater. Dead logs and weeds are part of a healthy ecosystem: they are food and homes. | habitat | 149 | 291 | 10 | B |
| L02 | LIF5-021 | What people do is beneficial when it keeps or brings back a sign of a healthy ecosystem, and harmful when it takes away a sign of a healthy ecosystem. Beneficial means helpful. | beneficial | 149 | 302 | 10 | A |
| L03 | LIF5-022 | When a habitat changes, a population that loses what it needs gets smaller or leaves, the populations that ate it get smaller too, and a population that gets what it needs now grows. | population | 148 | 293 | 10 | A |
Design-check-sequence records
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Skill: design-check-sequence @ cca3af6
Part: L01 (LIF5-020)
Type: (a) one-step categorisation — a described place shows one of three signs, or is / is not a healthy ecosystem; the answer is one label.
Plan: which sign (3 opt) ×3 in the lexicon's order → is this healthy: algae pond (no), rotting-log forest floor (yes) → Dev's claim, SD-3 (no) → the clear canal with one weed (no) → the pile of dead branches (yes) → the two-pond table (A) → the term habitat (3 opt, last). Keys (3-opt) 0 1 2 … 0; (2-opt) n y n n y A.
Belongs in practice/test instead: the four-sign set with the belief's non-sign; the four-places pick; the claim by its correct reason; typed habitat (PP types 1–4, 7).
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Skill: design-check-sequence @ cca3af6
Part: L02 (LIF5-021)
Type: (a) one-step categorisation — a described action is beneficial or harmful; the ask names the option set every time.
Plan: fence (b), dirty water into a lake (h), mangroves (b), the dead tree left standing (b), the drained pond (h), the woodland raked bare (h), weed killer (h) → which sign it brings back ×2 (3 opt: 1, 0) → beneficial means helpful (3 opt, last). Keys (2-opt) b h b b h h h — no four in a row alternate; (3-opt) 1 0 0.
Belongs in practice/test instead: the pick-of-four actions; the sign the action touches with four options; typed harmful; beneficial among its sisters; the two-sign set (PP types 5–7, 10).
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Skill: design-check-sequence @ cca3af6
Part: L03 (LIF5-022)
Type: (b) multi-step routine — four questions in order; the student can be right at step one and wrong at step three.
Plan: the worked case (the Everglades) and its chain are on the page; the scaffolded items sit on a SECOND case, the Elwha dam: what the dam took away (3 opt) → the salmon population (3 opt) → the bears that ate the salmon (3 opt) → the bass that gain the still lake (3 opt); bare: the cleaned Cuyahoga's fish, then its kingfishers; the plowed prairie's hawks (two links, drawn chain); the filled-in pond's grasses; the drained marsh's crayfish before its raccoons (A); the term population (3 opt, last). Keys (3-opt) 0 1 2 0 1 2 0 1 0; (2-opt) A.
Belongs in practice/test instead: one population's change with four options and the SD-5 distractor; which population grows / loses food; the set answers; the reason for a stated outcome (PP types 8–10).
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The key strings
- Attached questions in video order (L01, L02, L03, summary 1–3): B A A A B B — A 3 of 6 (50 %), no run of four alternating.
- Lesson quizzes, two-option items: L01
n y n n y A· L02b h b b h h h· L03A; three-option: L010 1 2 0; L021 0 0; L030 1 2 0 1 2 0 1 0; practice three-option1 2 0 0 1 1 0 2 1 2, two-optionn b h. - PP100 MCQ keys: A 10 · B 13 · C 17 · D 7 (47 MCQs; no letter above 35 %); the two typed items and the two multi-selects carry no letter.
- Claims: one in the quizzes (L01-q6, Dev, keyed no) and one in the bank (PP-17, Cora, "What is the correct reason?"); no TRUE claim exists because the one documented belief has no honest true twin that is not the lesson's rule.
- Order convention: no order item. Lettered drawings: none (every chain names its boxes in words).
The example sequences, written out (write-example-sequence self-check)
L01 (frame "Is this place a healthy ecosystem?", deciding feature: how many kinds live there). the stream: water plants, insects, snails, minnows, a frog, a heron; clear water; every eater fed → YES · the same stream, imagined with only algae left → NO · the park's lawn, one kind of grass mowed short → NO · the same lawn left to grow a year: weeds, insects, birds → YES. Rule 1 minimal difference: the stream flip changes kinds only (the water and the place hold); the lawn flip changes kinds only. Rule 2 variation: between the two negatives only the object changes (a stream to a lawn). Rule 3: p→n on the stream, n→p on the lawn. Rule 4: the object holds at both flips. Shape p n n p, chosen because the stream must be seen whole first (the three signs) and the belief's own object, the lawn, must carry its own crossing. S118: 0 FAIL.
L02 (frame "Is this beneficial or harmful to the river's living things?", deciding feature: what people did). dump paint cans → HARMFUL (takes away clean water) · pick the cans up → BENEFICIAL (brings back clean water) · plant trees → BENEFICIAL (brings back many kinds) · cut the trees down → HARMFUL (takes away many kinds). One object throughout (the Trinity River bank); each step changes the action only; crossings n→p (the same cans) and p→n (the same trees). Shape n p p n. No absurd non-example; the sorting sentence for the class line is the rule itself (keeps or brings back a sign / takes away a sign). S118: 0 FAIL.
L03 is a routine, not a sort: no sequence block; the worked case is run in four named steps and the led case (the dam) is the quiz's scaffold.
The rules applied (the brief's rulings 1–13 and the vault notes), with where each bites
| Rule | Where it bites here |
|---|---|
| 1 Openers: the scene, the narrator asks; a child speaks only for a documented belief | all three headaches and scripts; Dev's one line is L01-q6 (SD-3); Cora's is PP-17 |
| 2 No per-lesson misconception slot | L02 and L03 carry no claim item (SD-3 names no belief about actions or habitat change); their slots are transfer items |
| 3 The subject is a noun | "Rain washed paint into the river", "the frog population got smaller"; no bare "it" that could be misread (L03 script beat 3's "they" has one antecedent, the herons) |
| 4 The video stands alone | every script opens on its own scene and people; L01's script coins habitat, L02's says beneficial and its meaning, L03's coins population; every quiz fact is spoken |
| 5 What before why; one change per step; the frame asks before the verdict | "Is this stream a healthy ecosystem? Yes, it is." before any reason; S118 0 FAIL on both sequences; the dam items ask what the dam took away before what happens |
| 6 Terms: required coined in the frame, reused, recapped, tested; "so" only for a deduction | "is called its habitat", "we call it beneficial", "are called a population"; each reused in later lessons and the summary; no "so" before a naming; the recap opener was cut from the scripts for length, so none stands |
| 7 Precise verbs | "takes away", "brings back", "keeps", "gets smaller", "grows", "leaves"; no "gives / gets"; "the frogs needed water to lay their eggs in", never "the frogs need the wetland" |
| 8 No lettered cases | every chain box and every option is a named living thing or place |
| 9 Contrasts in one frame | "beneficial when it keeps or brings back a sign of a healthy ecosystem, and harmful when it takes away a sign of a healthy ecosystem"; check_parallel on the two halves as sentences: PASS (one varying slot each side) |
| 10 Forces named | no force appears in this topic |
| 11 Recall bank | six items, each before the lesson that needs it, none on the lesson immediately before; term-recall items on the topic's own coins sit last in their quizzes |
| 12 Verdict + reason options | lesson claim is bare yes / no; the bank claim is "Cora is wrong. What is the correct reason?" with four single-statement reasons; no bundled option anywhere |
| 13 No new rules | two collisions recorded under judgement calls, both decided for the student |
| Use the exam board's term | "beneficial" (TEKS), "population" and "habitat" (Arizona) are the coined words |
| A rule that judges cases is taught in its own example-sequence lesson | L02 is that lesson; L03 runs the routine |
| A non-example is a near miss | the algae stream, the mowed lawn; the dead tree left standing and the raked woodland in L02's quiz are the near misses a child would cross |
| Lesson text states the fact, never the topic that taught it | "A food web is many food chains joined together, and the arrow points from the food to the one that eats it." (Grade 4 Topic 35's sentence, no "in Grade 4 you saw") |
| Grades 3-5 say "not alive" | the ecosystem recap and every recall item |
| Hypotheticals are imagined removals | "Now imagine the same stream with only green algae left", "Now imagine people cut those trees down" |
| A real place or organism survives the claim made about it | the Everglades were drained for farms (true); the Trinity River bank was dumped on and later cleaned and planted (true of the Trinity River Audubon Center site); Elwha dams blocked salmon (true); the Cuyahoga was cleaned up and fish returned (true); geese eat cattails, foxes take geese; bass need still water; salmon lay eggs in gravel |
| Grade-level words (S36) | 18 words listed and answered below |
| Every sentence has a subject and a verb (S38) | 0 fragments after the summary bullet "A healthy ecosystem: …" became "A healthy ecosystem has …" |
| Units as words; biggest / smallest for size only | no numbers with units in this topic; S39 0 |
| Students never see "strand" | S37 0; the batch grep for strand is 0 |
| An attached question stands alone (S27) | each names its own scene (a Wisconsin pond, a Colorado stream bank, a Minnesota marsh, a New Hampshire lake, a Nevada desert stream, an Oregon forest) |
| Recognition before recall; typed only where spellable (S33 / S34 / S35) | habitat offered in L01-q10 and PR-12 before PR-13 types it; harmful typed in the bank after its sort items; beneficial and population by MCQ (RECALL_BY_MCQ); S35 0 |
| Key tells | KEY TELLS: 0 of 104 MCQs flagged (a: 0, b: 0, c: 0) |
| Code draws what must be exact; placeholders for the real | 17 SVG (chains, tables, verdict strip, rule cards), 9 photo and 4 cartoon placeholders with briefs in IMAGE_BRIEFS; no person drawn as a glyph |
Documented misconceptions used, and the beliefs deliberately not stated
- Used: LIF5 register SD-3, "A tidy, park-like ecosystem is a healthy one" (trap: rating a mowed lawn healthier than a messy meadow). Met in L01 by name on the lawn-and-meadow pair and the line "A mowed lawn feeds almost nothing"; tested by L01-q6 (Dev, bare yes / no, the correction in the why) and PP-17 (Cora, the correct reason); the belief's non-sign "short, tidy grass" is the fourth option of the bank's sign set; the near misses in L01-q5, q8 and L02-q4, q6 (dead wood is part of a healthy ecosystem).
- Used as a distractor only: LIF5 register SD-5, "Individuals change their own features to fit a new environment" — the fourth option of the population set ("It changes its body to fit the new place."), never stated in a lesson (Topic 29 teaches it).
- Not stated: no belief about people's actions or about habitat change is documented for LIF5-021 or LIF5-022, so L02 and L03 carry no claim item and state no wrong belief.
Checker results, every WARN answered
python3 build_tools_check_topic.py → 0 FAIL, 28 WARN (S46 A = 0, B = 0, C = 0, D = 0; S35 0; S37 0; S38 0; S39 0; S41 0; S43 0; S44 0; S30 typed 3, 0 fail; S45 0).
- 10 × S8 "beat carries 3–5 sentences": kept — the young-grades beat is one picture state with its question and verdict ("Is this stream a healthy ecosystem? Yes, it is."); every script is under 150 words and each beat is one screen; the same shape stands in the approved Grade 4 topics.
- 18 × S36 unusual words: tidy (kept — the belief's own word, "a tidy, park-like ecosystem"), salmon (kept — a US fish a child knows), trash (kept — the US everyday word), shrimp (kept), salamanders / salamander (kept — US animal; the attached L03 question needs an egg-layer that is not the frog), weedy (kept — grade word), shallow (kept), salty (kept), spraying / sprays / sprayed (kept — everyday), wade (kept — described by the picture), bulldozers (kept — the intro describes what they do: "push dirt flat"), messy (kept), minnow (kept — "minnows" is on the list), shelter (kept — in "finds its food and its shelter"). Swapped before this run: muskrats → geese, ospreys → eagles, loons → eagles / ducks, cypress → tall trees, unmowed → left to grow, unplowed → left alone, unchanged → as it is, scarce → has less food, lacks → does not have, tidier → look tidy, unhealthy → in poor health, harm → hurt (James: "say damage"; the coined word harmful stays as the standards' term).
python3 build_tools_check_terms.py → 0 hits (B 0, C 0, D 0): habitat said in L02 and L03, beneficial in L03 ("Cleaning up a river is beneficial"), population in the summary; the two D hits ("What do we call the river / all the deer") were rewritten as "What is the river, for the trout?" / "Which word names all the deer…".
python3 grade5/check_g5_articles.py → 0 FAIL; L02's article is 302 words (WARN above 300) — kept: the run is four cases with a verdict each plus the coin, every stretch under 6 idea lines, and the Grade 3 median is 308.
check_key_tells.py → KEY TELLS: 0 of 104 MCQs flagged (a: 0, b: 0, c: 0).
check_svg_ids.py → PASS (31 figures, 0 ids).
check_lessons.py --adapter tools/check_adapter_g5.json → 0 FAIL (S118 0; S116 0 after the L03 quiz keys were respread), 83 WARN: S8 beats as above; 24 × S22 "a later stem carries an earlier check's key 'beneficial' / 'harmful'" — the fixed-set ask names both options in every stem by rule (The stem names what the options actually do), so the hit is the explained one the write-mcqs skill predicts; 46 × S11 "fb[key] is not empty" — the vault convention; this course's shape (every Grade 3–5 topic) gives a confirming fb on the key, and the course checker accepts it; 1 × S26 "no typed term-recall item in the lesson sets" — the typed recall sits in the practice (habitat, PR-13) and the bank (habitat, harmful); the ten-letter terms are recalled by MCQ by James's spelling ruling.
build_tools_build_topic_site.py → builds (3 lessons, 15 practice, 51 pp100, 30 figures); screenshots of the L01–L03 article routes, the L03 quiz route, practice, pp100 and summary taken at phone width (390 px) and read: placeholders carry their notes, the verdict strip, the signs table and the sort table sit inside their frames, the chains render with their marks, the quiz's item chains carry no mark.
build_tools_video_batch.py → 5 videos; check_brief.py → INTRO ✓ L01 ✓ L02 ✓ L03 ✓ SUMMARY ✓ with the one standing note (summary/protected, 150 protected words); the L03 prompt is 6,061 characters (the builder's own note; under the 7,500 ceiling for a non-interactive entry). The batch is NOT sent.
build_tools_blind_bundle.py → bundled 96 mcq, 3 text, 1 frq, 2 multi; held 102.
The recall bank (RECALL_BANK, 6 items)
| Before | Recalls | From | The item |
|---|---|---|---|
| L01 | LIF5-001 | Topic 23 L01 | a pond's ecosystem is the living things together with the water, mud and sunlight |
| L01 | LIF4-024 | Grade 4 Topic 35 L02 | a rabbit eating grass is a consumer |
| L02 | LIF5-005 | Topic 23 L04 | a trout's survival depends on the clean water, a part of its ecosystem that is not alive |
| L03 | LIF3-063 | Grade 3 Topic 42 L04 | when a place changes quickly, some stay and survive well, some move away, some die |
| L03 | LIF5-016 | Topic 26 L02 | the minnows die off, so the eagles that ate them go hungry |
| L03 | LIF4-052 | Grade 4 Topic 38 L04 | a kind whose features no longer suit the changed place moves away, or every one of it dies |
Bank freshness, re-performed
Scene nouns of the lesson side (headaches, articles, scripts, quizzes, attached, summary, recall, intro): Austin park stream, log, weeds, mowed lawn, algae, Trinity River bank, paint cans, trees, Everglades, ditches, frogs, herons, dry-ground grasses, Houston bulldozers; quiz places and props: Michigan / Minnesota / Ohio-field / Georgia-algae / Vermont-forest-floor / Florida golf course / Colorado canal / Oregon branches / Kansas two ponds / Idaho trout; Oregon fence / Ohio lake factory / Florida mangroves / California dead tree / Iowa pond / Michigan raking / Oklahoma weed killer / Georgia pipe / Arizona wildflowers / Virginia pond; Elwha dam and salmon / Ohio cleaned river, water bugs, kingfishers / Kansas prairie dogs / Indiana parking lot / Louisiana crayfish and raccoons / Pennsylvania deer. Grep of the bank and the practice for each (script, re-run after the last edit): the only nouns shared are state names (a state is not a scene) and the belief's own nouns mowed / lawn / algae, which the bank must carry to test SD-3 (PP-6, PP-10, PP-17, PP-25). Four bank items were re-scened on the grep's evidence: the Oregon dam-and-salmon term item became a restored factory yard; the Pennsylvania cleaned stream's raccoons became otters; the Tennessee stream's crayfish and kingfisher became snails and a duck; the Texas paved marsh's parking lot became a mall; the Iowa weed-killer item became cut wildflowers.
Blind-text grep
Every item figure's <!--blind: …--> text (q_chain_river, q_chain_prairie, pp_chain_pond, pp_chain_marsh, pp_chain_woods, pp_chain_bay, q_two_ponds, pp_three_lakes) grepped for grows / smaller / stays / healthy / healthier / beneficial / harmful / more signs / most signs / first / eats / eaten → 0 hits; the bundle's [Drawing: …] lines grepped the same way → 0 hits. The chains' blind text lists the boxes and the arrow direction as data; the tables list every cell.
Figures (author self-check on the renders; the non-author review-figures pass is owed)
31 figures rendered to /tmp/g5t27_figs and twelve opened at phone width (the two wetland chains, the verdict strip, the three tables, the two item tables, the bay chain, L03's rule card, the stream cartoon and photo placeholders): labels sit inside their boxes (two-line wrap for "water plants", "dry-ground grasses"), the arrow points from the food to its eater, the change marks sit under their own box with the chip below the arrow, the verdict strip prints its question above the marks, every table cell fits its column (the drawer's guard asserted nothing). check_svg_ids.py PASS. The two forest-edge chains were drawn and then removed with the forest-edge section (no page or script placed them).
Names run
python3 build_tools_names.py Clara Cora Dev Acosta → Clara INFO (this topic), Cora INFO (topic32 — cross-topic recurrence is information only, James 6 Oct), Dev INFO (topics 02, 03, 04 — information only), Acosta free. Within this topic each name is one person: Clara the class's child in every scene, Dev the quiz claim-maker, Cora the bank claim-maker, Miss Acosta the teacher.
Sentence-atomise self-check (collapsed to the rows that changed)
Skill: sentence-atomise @ cca3af6. Every idea line, caption, headache, forest line, script beat, fb, why and model was read against the fourteen rows; S1 (≤ 22 words, ≤ 2 sentences) is 0 FAIL on both checkers. Rows that changed a line:
- Row 2 (one idea per sentence): eleven idea lines over 22 words or three sentences in the first draft were split or cut ("Clara counts the kinds of living things in the stream: …" → "In the stream live water plants, insects, snails, minnows, a frog, and a heron."; the three-sentence verdict lines became "Is this stream a healthy ecosystem? No, it is not: one kind of living thing is left, so there is little food.").
- Row 4 (named actor): "they went hungry" in L03's script keeps one antecedent (the herons); every other "it" was replaced by its noun.
- Row 6 (explicit link): "scarce" → "has less food"; "harm" → "hurt" in the intro and L02's script; "the mark it leaves"-type phrases: none.
- Row 8 (comparisons in one frame): the L02 rule's two halves; the three summary chips.
- Row 12 (no fluff): "Let's look." cut from the headaches and articles once the scripts had to fit 150 words (kept nowhere, so the article and the script match); "Let's work it out." cut from L03.
- Row 14: longest idea line 22 words; longest script beat 36 words.
Judgement calls and rule collisions
- "beneficial" against the register's plain "helpful". The register and the architecture row say "helpful or harmful"; TEKS 5.12C says "beneficial or harmful". Use the exam board's term where the standards name one wins: beneficial is coined with helpful as its meaning, tested by recognition only (ten letters), and every sort item asks "beneficial or harmful". Recorded, not asked: either way the student learns the same sort; this way the student also knows the test's word.
- "harm" → "hurt". S36 flags "harm" (James: say "damage") in the intro's map line and L02's script question. "Damage" does not fit a living thing ("damage the river's living things"), so "hurt" (a grade word) stands in those two sentences; the coined "harmful" is the standards' word and stays.
- The article's "Let's look." versus the script's word cap. The scripts had no room for it; the articles dropped it too so that the headache reads the same in both. The headache still ends on the narrator's question.
- L03's forest edge. The brief names four changes (a wetland drained, a forest edge cleared, a dam built, a stream cleaned up). All four are traced through who eats whom in the topic: the wetland in the article and script, the dam in the scaffolded quiz, the cleaned stream in the quiz and the article's one beneficial line, the forest edge in the bank (PP-38) — the article alone could not hold all four under 300 words.
- S22's 24 WARNs on the L02 stems. Two rules meet: the stem must name the option set ("beneficial or harmful?") and a later stem must not carry an earlier key. The write-mcqs skill already names this as the explained WARN; the stems keep the ask.
- The vault's fb[key] convention. The vault sweep expects an empty fb on the key; this course's shape prints a confirming fb on every option and its own checker accepts it. Followed the course.
- Clara in two field-trip scenes. One child carries L01 and L02 (a stream in Austin, a river in Dallas); L03 has no child because its change is historical. One class, two trips, is a smaller cast than a new child per lesson.
Owed
- The non-author passes: review-figures (every rendered figure, the placeholder briefs), review-questions (every quiz, practice, recall and bank item against the type sheet), review-accuracy (the Everglades, Trinity River, Elwha and Cuyahoga claims; geese and cattails; bass and still water).
- The blind read on
blind/2026-10-08/BLIND_BUNDLE_G5T27.md(two cold readers; the key file is sequestered beside it). - Pictures: 13 placeholders (9 photo, 4 cartoon) to David's image pack after the text is clean and reviewed; no question for James is open, so the picture pass need not wait on him.
- Videos:
handoff/G5T27/videos/batch_G5T27.jsonis built and checked, NOT sent (every Grade 5 Life batch waits for James's go after the sample of Topics 24 and 25). - Topics 23 and 26 are being written in parallel: when their lexicons land, the recap lines here for "ecosystem", "food web" and the next link's change are read against them and matched word for word if they differ.
The type sheet
Skill: course-build → write-mcqs → write-explanation, design-check-sequence @ cca3af6
Topic 27 — What a healthy ecosystem looks like, and what people do to it — the PP100's question types, with their exemplars
What this page is. James reads a bank as its question TYPES first (vault: A bank is reviewed as its question types first, one exemplar each). Under the Grade 5 standing brief the bank is built straight away (51 items in content/G5T27_pp100_bank.py); this sheet is the way in. Each type line says what the stem asks, what the options are, and which atom it serves; one exemplar per type follows in full.
Rulings already applied. Four options on every MCQ (fixed sets: the four signs "many different kinds of living things / clean water / enough food for every eater / short, tidy grass" — the fourth is the belief's non-sign; the population set "It gets smaller. / It stays the same. / It grows. / It changes its body to fit the new place." — the fourth is SD-5's belief, a distractor only); no option bundles a verdict with its reason (the one claim is "Cora is wrong. What is the correct reason?" with four single-statement reasons); every item tagged to ONE atom; difficulty by depth of reasoning and rising with the atom's position (LIF5-020 12 easy, LIF5-022 13 hard); the hard tier recalls every coined term (habitat typed, harmful typed, beneficial and population by MCQ among their sisters — ten letters each, RECALL_BY_MCQ); every item a fresh instance (no lesson, quiz, attached, recall or practice scene; the belief's mowed lawn is the one noun shared, because the belief itself is tested); key letters A 10 · B 13 · C 17 · D 7 across 47 MCQs; key tells 0 of 104.
The bar list (things a generated item must never use): "predator" / "prey" (Topic 23 or 26 coins them); "species" (say "kind"); "non-living" (say "not alive"); "crashes", "collapses", "booms", "dies out" for a population (say "gets smaller", "leaves", "grows"); a population outside the chain keyed as changing; an animal that breaks the claim made about it (no tortoise, no non-US animal; a fish that lays eggs in gravel is a salmon or a trout, never a bass); a dam item on salmon (the L03 quiz's scene); any Austin stream, Trinity River or Everglades scene; "gravity", "leak", "lift", "snap"; a verdict joined to its reason in one option.
The ten types
| Type | Items | Atom | Tags | Form | The stem asks… | The options / the accept | Exemplar scenes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 8 | 020 | easy | MCQ, the four-sign set | a described place: which sign of a healthy ecosystem it shows | many kinds / clean water / enough food / short, tidy grass | a Vermont lake with five kinds; a clear Idaho stream; a Louisiana marsh where cattails feed geese and geese feed foxes |
| 2 | 4 | 020 | easy → medium | MCQ, four places (one a drawn table) | which of four places is a healthy ecosystem / shows clean water / is the healthiest / shows the most signs (table) | four places | an Illinois pond against a ditch of algae, a parking lot, a mowed lawn; three Michigan lakes in a table |
| 3 | 4 | 020 | easy → medium | MCQ | what a dead log or a weed is in the ecosystem; which sentence about the log is true; what one kind of living thing means for the eaters | four single statements | a rotting Oregon log with beetles and mushrooms; Wisconsin pond weeds that snails eat; a Delaware pond of algae |
| 4 | 1 | 020 | medium | MCQ, the claim form | Cora's raked park is wrong. What is the correct reason? | four single-statement reasons | a raked New York park against the wild woods beside it (SD-3's belief) |
| 5 | 6 | 021 | easy → medium | MCQ | which of four actions is beneficial / harmful to a named ecosystem; why a named action is beneficial / harmful | four actions / four reasons | trash picked up on a Vermont stream bank; a pipe into an Alabama bay; a Georgia yard corner left to grow |
| 6 | 9 | 021 | medium | MCQ, the four-sign set | which sign the action brings back, keeps or takes away | many kinds / clean water / enough food / short, tidy grass | a stopped pipe in Illinois; willows on an Oregon bank; a mine's rusty water in Colorado; a marsh walkway in Ohio |
| 7 | 4 | 020 / 021 / 022 | hard | typed and MCQ | the coined word from its definition (habitat, harmful typed); the coined word among its sisters from a fresh case (beneficial; population) | habitat, harmful with child spellings / harmful, adapted, beneficial, extinct / a habitat, a food web, a population, an ecosystem | a factory yard in Oregon planted with grass and trees; all the trout in a Wyoming lake |
| 8 | 8 | 022 | medium → hard | MCQ, the population set (three with a drawn chain) | a habitat change and one named population: what happens to it (hard: two links chained, or a population outside the chain) | gets smaller / stays the same / grows / changes its body | a drained Indiana pond's pondweed, then its snails; a burned Colorado hillside's deer; Vermont swallows that ate dragonflies; Florida crows that never ate from the marsh |
| 9 | 7 | 022 | hard | MCQ, four populations (three with a drawn chain) | which population grows / gets smaller because it has less food / is first to grow / loses a named food; which sentence says why a population got smaller | four populations / four reasons | a drained Louisiana wetland; a Michigan marsh (cattails → geese → foxes); a cut Missouri woodland (acorns → mice → owls); a Massachusetts river mouth walled off; a drained Louisiana wetland (minnows, otters, water lilies, dry-ground grasses) |
| 10 | 2 | 021 / 022 | hard | multi-select | the TWO signs an action keeps; the TWO populations that get smaller because of who eats whom | the four-sign set / four populations on a drawn chain | an Arkansas tree strip between field and river; a Texas bay filling with mud (drawn chain seagrass → shrimp → redfish; the gulls at the dump sit outside it) |
Hard because — type 7: the term is produced from its definition (typed) or recognised among sister words with the plain word absent. Type 8 hard: two links are chained (the dragonflies lose water, the swallows lose food), or the student must see that a population outside the chain is untouched. Type 9: two causes are told apart (losing water, losing food) and the chain is read for the right eater, or the order along the chain is reasoned. Type 10: a set answer traced along the chain, with the direct loser excluded.
⟂ draw constraints (never two on one test): PP-30 ⟂ PP-31 (the same drained Indiana pond, pondweed then snails: the first prints the second's premise); PP-41 ⟂ PP-42 (the same cut Missouri woodland, mice then owls); PP-35 ⟂ the practice's typed habitat (two typed habitat definitions); PP-39 ⟂ PP-46 (the "which population grows" move on two land changes); PP-40 ⟂ PP-44 (the "less food, not less water" move on two chains); PP-17 ⟂ PP-10 (Cora's raked park and the Nebraska prairie field both carry the belief's mowed grass as a wrong option); PP-39 ⟂ PP-50 (two drained wetlands whose minnows get fewer — numbering corrected and the last pair added by the 8 Oct non-author review).
Design-move inventory, in brief (the move · the scene kind · the nearest lesson-side item): type 1 "name the sign a described place shows" · a lake, stream, marsh, valley, pond, bay · L01-q1–q3 (different places, the three-option set) · type 2 "pick the healthy place of four" · four land or water places in one state · L01-q9 (two ponds in a table; the bank's table has three lakes and four options) · type 3 "what the dead log or weed is; why one kind means little food" · a forest floor, a pond edge, an algae pond · L01-q5, q8 · type 4 "the belief's correct reason" · a raked park against wild woods · L01-q6 (Dev's golf course, bare yes / no) · type 5 "pick the beneficial or harmful action of four; the reason" · a stream bank, a bay, a prairie, a forest, a yard, a factory river · L02-q1–q7 (two-option sorts) · type 6 "which sign the action touches" · a pipe stopped, willows planted, flowers cut, a marsh paved, rusty water, a walkway, campers' trash, clover · L02-q8, q9 · type 7 "the term" · a definition stem; a factory yard restored; Wyoming trout · L01-q10, L02-q10, L03-q10, PR-12–15 · type 8 "one population's change" · a drained pond, a cleaned river, a burned hillside, a cut forest, a filled pond, a cleaned bay, a drained marsh with crows · L03-q2–q6, the attached, PR-9, PR-10 · type 9 "which population" · a drained wetland, a drained marsh chain, a cut woodland chain, a walled river mouth, a cleaned stream, a plowed prairie, a drained Georgia marsh · L03-q7–q9 · type 10 "the set" · a tree strip; a muddy bay chain · none on the lesson side.
One exemplar per type, in full
Type 1 (easy, LIF5-020). A lake in Vermont holds trout, frogs, water lilies, ducks and otters. Which sign of a healthy ecosystem does the lake show? — many different kinds of living things / clean water / enough food for every eater / short, tidy grass. Why: A healthy ecosystem has many different kinds of living things. The lake holds five different kinds. So the lake shows the sign many different kinds of living things.
Type 2 (easy, LIF5-020). Which of these four places in Illinois is a healthy ecosystem? — a ditch holding only green algae / a parking lot with one weed in a crack / a clear pond with twelve kinds of living things / a lawn mowed short, with one kind of grass. Why: A healthy ecosystem has many different kinds of living things and clean water. Only the pond has many kinds and clear water; the ditch, the parking lot and the lawn each hold one kind. So the pond is the healthy ecosystem.
Type 3 (easy, LIF5-020). A rotting log lies on a forest floor in Oregon, with beetles under its bark and mushrooms growing on top. Which sentence about the log is true? — The log should be taken away to keep the forest healthy. / The log shows that the forest is in poor health. / The log takes food away from the forest's living things. / The log is food and a home for the forest's living things. Why: Dead logs and weeds are part of a healthy ecosystem: they are food and homes. The beetles live under the log's bark, and the mushrooms feed on the log. So the log is part of a healthy ecosystem.
Type 4 (medium, LIF5-020, the one claim). Cora says a raked city park in New York, with every dead leaf and branch removed, is a healthier ecosystem than the wild woods beside it, but Cora is wrong. What is the correct reason? — The raked park has much cleaner water than the wild woods beside it have. / The wild woods hold far fewer kinds of living things than the raked park holds. / The wild woods hold many kinds of living things, fed by the dead leaves and branches. / The park's mowed grass makes much more food than the woods' trees make. Source: LIF5 register SD-3; L01's lawn-and-meadow pair. Why: A healthy ecosystem has many different kinds of living things, and dead logs and weeds are part of it. The dead leaves and branches are food and homes, so the wild woods hold many kinds; the raked park holds few. So the wild woods are the healthier ecosystem, and Cora is not right.
Type 5 (easy, LIF5-021). Which of these four things is beneficial to the ecosystem of a stream in Vermont? — pouring used motor oil into the stream / picking up the trash along the bank / cutting down every tree along the bank / draining the stream to build a road. Why: What people do is beneficial when it keeps or brings back a sign of a healthy ecosystem. Picking up the trash keeps the water clean; the oil, the cutting and the draining each take a sign away. So picking up the trash is the beneficial thing.
Type 6 (medium, LIF5-021). A mine in Colorado lets rusty water run into a stream, and the stream turns orange. Which sign of a healthy ecosystem does the rusty water take away? — many different kinds of living things / clean water / enough food for every eater / short, tidy grass. Why: A healthy ecosystem has clean water. The rusty water turns the stream orange. So the rusty water takes away clean water.
Type 7 (hard, LIF5-021, typed). Type the word for what people do when it takes away a sign of a healthy ecosystem. — accept harmful / harmfull / harm full / it is harmful / harmful to the ecosystem; wrong_fb for "bad" and "beneficial". Why: What people do is harmful when it takes away a sign of a healthy ecosystem. So the word is harmful.
Type 8 (hard, LIF5-022). A marsh in Florida is drained. Crows at a dump nearby eat trash, and never ate anything from the marsh. What happens to the crow population? — It gets smaller. / It stays the same. / It grows. / It changes its body to fit the new place. Why: When a habitat changes, a population that loses what it needs gets smaller, and the populations that ate it get smaller too. The crows needed nothing from the marsh and ate nothing from it. So the crow population stays the same.
Type 9 (hard, LIF5-022, drawn chain cattails → geese → foxes). A marsh in Michigan is drained, and the cattails need water. Which population is the first to get smaller because it has less FOOD? — the cattails / the geese / the foxes / the dry-ground grasses. Why: The populations that ate a population that got smaller get smaller too. The cattails get smaller because they lost water; the geese ate the cattails, so they are the first to lose food; the foxes lose food only after that. So the geese are the first to get smaller because they have less food.
Type 10 (hard, LIF5-022, multi-select, drawn chain seagrass → shrimp → redfish). A bay in Texas fills with mud from a building site, and the seagrass dies. Select the TWO populations that get smaller because of who eats whom. — the seagrass / the shrimp / the redfish / the gulls that eat trash at the dump. Why: The populations that ate a population that got smaller get smaller too. The shrimp ate the seagrass, and the redfish ate the shrimp; the gulls ate trash, not seagrass or shrimp. So the shrimp and the redfish get smaller because of who eats whom.