KIDTROP TEKS ALIGNMENT

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EcoStation is aligned to the Science TEKS for Kindergarten through Grade 5.  
 

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TEKS INFORMATION

Science, Kindergarten

• Scientific investigation and reasoning. The student conducts classroom and outdoor investigations following home and school safety procedures and uses environmentally appropriate and responsible practices. The student is expected to:
  • Demonstrate how to use, conserve, and dispose of natural resources and materials such as conserving water and reusing or recycling paper, plastic, and metal
• Scientific investigation and reasoning.  The student develops abilities to ask questions and seek answers in classroom and outdoor investigations. The student is expected to:
  • Ask questions about organisms, objects, and events observed in the natural world
  • Plan and conduct simple descriptive investigations such as ways objects move
  •  Communicate observations with others about simple descriptive investigations
• Scientific investigation and reasoning. The student knows that information and critical thinking are used in scientific problem solving. The student is expected to:
  •  Make predictions based on observable patterns in nature such as the shapes of leaves
  • Explore that scientists investigate different things in the natural world and use tools to help in their investigations
• Scientific investigation and reasoning. The student uses age-appropriate tools and models to investigate the natural world. The student is expected to:
  • Use senses as a tool of observation to identify properties and patterns of organisms, objects, and events in the environment
• Force, motion, and energy. The student knows that energy, force, and motion are related and are a part of their everyday life. The student is expected to:
  • Use the five senses to explore different forms of energy such as light, heat, and sound
•  Earth and space. The student knows that the natural world includes earth materials. The student is expected to:
  • Give examples of ways rocks, soil, and water are useful
• Organisms and environments. The student knows that plants and animals have basic needs and depend on the living and nonliving things around them for survival. The student is expected to:
  • Differentiate between living and nonliving things based upon whether they have basic needs and produce offspring
  • Examine evidence that living organisms have basic needs such as food, water, and shelter for animals and air, water, nutrients, sunlight, and space for plants
• Organisms and environments. The student knows that organisms resemble their parents and have structures and processes that help them survive within their environments. The student is expected to:
  • Sort plants and animals into groups based on physical characteristics such as color, size, body covering, or leaf shape;
  • Identify parts of plants such as roots, stem, and leaves and parts of animals such as head, eyes, and limbs;
  • Identify ways that young plants resemble the parent plant; and
  • Observe changes that are part of a simple life cycle of a plant: seed, seedling, plant, flower, and fruit.

 
Science, Grade 1

• Scientific investigation and reasoning. The student conducts classroom and outdoor investigations following home and school safety procedures and uses environmentally appropriate and responsible practices. The student is expected to:(A)  recognize and demonstrate safe practices as described in the Texas Safety Standards during classroom and outdoor investigations, including wearing safety goggles, washing hands, and using materials appropriately;
  • Recognize the importance of safe practices to keep self and others safe and healthy
  • Identify and learn how to use natural resources and materials, including conservation and reuse or recycling of paper, plastic, and metals
• Scientific investigation and reasoning. The student develops abilities to ask questions and seek answers in classroom and outdoor investigations. The student is expected to:
  • Ask questions about organisms, objects, and events observed in the natural world
  • Plan and conduct simple descriptive investigations such as ways objects move
  • Communicate observations and provide reasons for explanations using student-generated data from simple descriptive investigations
• Organisms and environments. The student knows that the living environment is composed of relationships between organisms and the life cycles that occur. The student is expected to:
  • Sort and classify living and nonliving things based upon whether or not they have basic needs and produce offspring;
  • Analyze and record examples of interdependence found in various situations such as terrariums and aquariums or pet and caregiver
  • Gather evidence of interdependence among living organisms such as energy transfer through food chains and animals using plants for shelter
• Organisms and environments. The student knows that organisms resemble their parents and have structures and processes that help them survive within their environments. The student is expected to:
  • Investigate how the external characteristics of an animal are related to where it lives, how it moves, and what it eats
  • Identify and compare the parts of plants
  • Compare ways that young animals resemble their parents
  • Observe and record life cycles of animals such as a chicken, frog, or fish

 
Science, Grade 2

• Scientific investigation and reasoning. The student conducts classroom and outdoor investigations following home and school safety procedures. The student is expected to:
  • Identify and demonstrate safe practices as described in the Texas Safety Standards during classroom and outdoor investigations, including wearing safety goggles, washing hands, and using materials appropriately
  • Describe the importance of safe practices
  • Identify and demonstrate how to use, conserve, and dispose of natural resources and materials such as conserving water and reuse or recycling of paper, plastic, and metal
• Scientific investigation and reasoning. The student develops abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry in classroom and outdoor investigations. The student is expected to:
  • Ask questions about organisms, objects, and events during observations and investigations
•  Scientific investigation and reasoning. The student knows that information and critical thinking, scientific problem solving, and the contributions of scientists are used in making decisions. The student is expected to:
  • Make predictions based on observable patterns
  • Identify what a scientist is and explore what different scientists do
• Organisms and environments. The student knows that living organisms have basic needs that must be met for them to survive within their environment. The student is expected to:
  • Identify the basic needs of plants and animals
  • Compare and give examples of the ways living organisms depend on each other and on their environments such as food chains within a garden, park, beach, lake, and wooded area
• Organisms and environments. The student knows that organisms resemble their parents and have structures and processes that help them survive within their environments. The student is expected to:
  • Observe, record, and compare how the physical characteristics and behaviors of animals help them meet their basic needs such as fins help fish move and balance in the water
  • Observe, record, and compare how the physical characteristics of plants help them meet their basic needs such as stems carry water throughout the plant
  • Investigate and record some of the unique stages that insects undergo during their life cycle

 
Science, Grade 3

• Scientific investigation and reasoning. The student conducts classroom and outdoor investigations following school and home safety procedures and environmentally appropriate practices. The student is expected to:
  • Demonstrate safe practices as described in the Texas Safety Standards during classroom and outdoor investigations, including observing a schoolyard habitat
  • Make informed choices in the use and conservation of natural resources by recycling or reusing materials such as paper, aluminum cans, and plastics
•  Scientific investigation and reasoning. The student knows how to use a variety of tools and methods to conduct science inquiry. The student is expected to:
  • Use safety equipment as appropriate, including safety goggles and gloves
• Organisms and environments. The student knows that organisms have characteristics that help them survive and can describe patterns, cycles, systems, and relationships within the environments. The student is expected to:
  • bserve and describe the physical characteristics of environments and how they support populations and communities within an ecosystem
  • Identify and describe the flow of energy in a food chain and predict how changes in a food chain affect the ecosystem such as removal of frogs from a pond or bees from a field
• Organisms and environments. The student knows that organisms undergo similar life processes and have structures that help them survive within their environments. The student is expected to:
  • Explore how structures and functions of plants and animals allow them to survive in a particular environment
  • Explore that some characteristics of organisms are inherited such as the number of limbs on an animal or flower color and recognize that some behaviors are learned in response to living in a certain environment such as animals using tools to get food
  • Investigate and compare how animals and plants undergo a series of orderly changes in their diverse life cycles such as tomato plants, frogs, and lady bugs

 
Science, Grade 4

• Scientific investigation and reasoning. The student conducts classroom and outdoor investigations, following home and school safety procedures and environmentally appropriate and ethical practices. The student is expected to:
  • Demonstrate safe practices and the use of safety equipment as described in the Texas Safety Standards during classroom and outdoor investigations
  • Make informed choices in the use and conservation of natural resources and reusing and recycling of materials such as paper, aluminum, glass, cans, and plastic
• Scientific investigation and reasoning. The student uses scientific inquiry methods during laboratory and outdoor investigations. The student is expected to:
  • Communicate valid oral and written results supported by data
• Organisms and environments. The student knows and understands that living organisms within an ecosystem interact with one another and with their environment. The student is expected to:
  • Investigate that most producers need sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide to make their own food, while consumers are dependent on other organisms for food
• Organisms and environments. The student knows that organisms undergo similar life processes and have structures that help them survive within their environment. The student is expected to:
  • Explore how adaptations enable organisms to survive in their environment such as comparing birds' beaks and leaves on plants
  • Demonstrate that some likenesses between parents and offspring are inherited, passed from generation to generation such as eye color in humans or shapes of leaves in plants. Other likenesses are learned such as table manners or reading a book and seals balancing balls on their noses
  • Explore, illustrate, and compare life cycles in living organisms such as butterflies, beetles, radishes, or lima beans

Science, Grade 5

• Scientific investigation and reasoning. The student conducts classroom and outdoor investigations following home and school safety procedures and environmentally appropriate and ethical practices. The student is expected to:
  • Demonstrate safe practices and the use of safety equipment as described in the Texas Safety Standards during classroom and outdoor investigations
  • Make informed choices in the conservation, disposal, and recycling of materials
• (2)  Scientific investigation and reasoning. The student uses scientific methods during laboratory and outdoor investigations. The student is expected to:
  • Describe, plan, and implement simple experimental investigations testing one variable
  • Ask well-defined questions, formulate testable hypotheses, and select and use appropriate equipment and technology
  • Collect information by detailed observations and accurate measuring
  • Analyze and interpret information to construct reasonable explanations from direct (observable) and indirect (inferred) evidence
  • Communicate valid conclusions in both written and verbal forms
• Scientific investigation and reasoning. The student uses critical thinking and scientific problem solving to make informed decisions. The student is expected to:
  • In all fields of science, analyze, evaluate, and critique scientific explanations by using empirical evidence, logical reasoning, and experimental and observational testing, including examining all sides of scientific evidence of those scientific explanations, so as to encourage critical thinking by the student
  • Connect grade-level appropriate science concepts with the history of science, science careers, and contributions of scientists
• Organisms and environments. The student knows that there are relationships, systems, and cycles within environments. The student is expected to:
  • Observe the way organisms live and survive in their ecosystem by interacting with the living and non-living elements
  • Describe how the flow of energy derived from the Sun, used by producers to create their own food, is transferred through a food chain and food web to consumers and decomposers
• Organisms and environments. The student knows that organisms undergo similar life processes and have structures that help them survive within their environments. The student is expected to:
  • Compare the structures and functions of different species that help them live and survive such as hooves on prairie animals or webbed feet in aquatic animals