Skills & TEKS · Grade 7

Skills & TEKS Alignment

For the featured breakout Rescue Run — aligned to the 2021 Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Science (§112.27).

🎯 Misconceptions confronted

🚨 “a flat line on a distance–time graph means moving at a steady speed” (it means stopped); “speed and velocity are the same” (velocity adds direction and depends on displacement); “a downhill line means slowing down” (it means returning to the start); and “insulation adds cold / stops heat” (it only slows heat, which always flows hot→cold to equilibrium).

📋 Lock-by-lock alignment

Recurring themes: patterns, cause & effect, systems & models, energy & matter, stability & change.

Lock	Skill / thinking move	TEKS (aligned to)	High-effect-size strategy
L1 · Sequence Graph story	Match a distance–time graph's segments to events; read slope as speed.	`7.7(C)` interpret motion on distance–time graphs; `7.2(B)` analyze data for patterns.	Concept mapping / sequencing (Hattie d≈0.64)
L2 · Multiple choice Speed vs. velocity	Distinguish speed (scalar) from velocity (vector) using displacement.	`7.7(B)` distinguish speed & velocity via distance, displacement & direction; `7.7(A)` average speed.	Confronting misconceptions / worked examples (d≈0.57)
L3 · Evidence sort Read the graph	Keep only valid graph readings; exclude a true-but-irrelevant fact.	`7.7(C)` interpret distance–time graphs; `7.1(B)` evidence-based reasoning; `7.2(D)` evaluate.	Classifying / sorting evidence (d≈0.60)
L4 · Word Thermal equilibrium	Name where heat flow ends; reason that insulation only slows it.	`7.8(A)` conduction, convection, radiation; `7.8(B)` heat flows warm→cool to thermal equilibrium.	Feedback + transfer (d≈0.70–0.86)

🔧 STEM engineering design challenge

Pair the breakout with the hands-on Keep-It-Cold Cooler challenge — design an insulated container, graph temperature vs. time, and read the slope like a motion graph. Anchored in 7.8(A–B) plus engineering practices 7.1(B), 7.1(G), 7.2(B/D), 7.7(C), 7.4(C).

🛠️ Open the STEM challenge →

🧩 The Grade 7 concept set

The More Grade 7 breakouts add one short activity per key concept: elements & compounds (7.6A/B), solutions & dissolving (7.6D/E), speed, velocity & motion graphs (7.7), heat transfer (7.8), the solar system (7.9), plate tectonics (7.10), water & watersheds (7.11), energy pyramids (7.12), human body systems (7.13), and classifying life (7.14).

🧑‍🏫 Teacher supports

Design every lesson for all learners: UDL supports (CAST v3.0), ELPS supports for emergent bilingual students, and a lesson-plan guide — each in all seven languages. See also the full standards correlation.

Standards are aligned to, not reproduced from, the official TEKS. Effect sizes from Hattie, Visible Learning.