Conversations in Art
In this lesson, students will learn the critique process using description, analysis, interpretation, and evaluation. Students will create an evaluation of artwork using the critique process and communicate their understanding through written responses and discourse.
Does it have Potential?
Students will work with partners to investigate how mass, potential energy, and kinetic energy act on objects dropped from varying heights.
Video of the lesson being taught
Composing Like Beethoven
Students will review music vocabulary, name notes using flashcards, and create and present a 4/4 composition using rhythm sticks and other available instruments.
Music flash cards
Mendelian Genetics Using Monohybrids
Students will work collaboratively through a fictitious, real-world scenario to determine the probability of each breeding pair of dogs producing offspring with the desired trait for a fictitious client.
Prokaryotic and Eukaryotic Cells
Students will categorize cells as prokaryotic or eukaryotic by identifying the presence or lack of a nucleus.
Teacher Summing Up Lesson
Lights, Camera, Action!
Students compare and contrast potential and kinetic energy by creating a real-world model through a movie.
Glaciologist in Action (Lab)
Students participate in a hands-on lab in which glacier (ice) effects on the Earth’s surface is demonstrated.
The Key to Key Signature
Students will review previous learning about half steps, whole steps, and enharmonics and will begin to learn the construction of tetrachords using the whole and half step sequence.
Demonstration and Analysis of Dihybrid Crosses
The students will review related vocabulary, watch the teacher model a dihybrid cross, and then perform a dihybrid cross and answer questions about the outcomes with a partner.
Got Force?
Students use various surfaces and a weighted car to see how far the car will travel using balanced and unbalanced forces.
Proving an Ecosystem’s Health Through Succession
Students engage in viewing day three of ecosystem changes in lab groups to determine if the ecosystem is healthy or unhealthy based on scientific data and factors.
Save the Factory!
Students will design an experiment to test the outcome of friction in force and motion. The students will create an inclined plane demonstrating their knowledge of mechanical energy and the effects of gravity on an object. Students will use previous knowledge of friction to complete their task of stopping their object. Critical thinking skills will be the focus of the lesson as students will have to utilize their scientific problem-solving skills to make decisions regarding their experiment.
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) Vertical Alignment
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Motion Pictures
In this lesson, students will be introduced to the concept of motion representation using distance vs. time graphs. Students will recognize labeling of axes, steepness related to speed, horizontal lines as non-motion, and downward slope as return to origin.
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Earth: A Tilted Affair
After a brief review of direct and indirect sunlight, students will arrange heat maps and globes around a drawing of the Sun based on the tilt of Earth and how it affects Earth’s temperature.
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) Related to the Unit
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DNA Sequencing
In this lesson, students will investigate how gene expression is a regulated process controlled by DNA and the interpretations of codons through translation.
Producing Plump Produce
In collaborative groups, the students investigate the transport of water within potato cells placed in various tonicity solutions.
Teacher explains the task to the students
Energy Transfer in an Ecosystem
All matter contains energy. Energy can be transferred from one object to another. Energy transformation can occur through the conversion of energy from one form to another. Energy is never created nor destroyed; it is always transferred and/or transformed. Students will demonstrate how energy is transformed and transferred in an ecosystem. To do this, students will create energy pyramids by stacking cups that represent organisms and available amounts of energy. Students will graph and analyze the data.
Students working on the task
Consumers and Producers
Students will investigate various ecosystems to determine what producers and consumers are, as well as their needs within an ecosystem.
Biotic and Abiotic Factors of an Ecosystem
Students will explore abiotic and biotic factors in various ecosystems by working through stations. Students will be able to identify and describe abiotic and biotic factors within an ecosystem.
Plant, Parts, and Function
Students use prior knowledge of body systems as they make connections to systems in plants. Students learn that some plant systems have similar functions as the respective animal systems. The lesson highlights the following systems in plants: root system, shoot system, vascular system, and reproductive system.