Stages of Ecological Succession
Students will collaborate on a electronic slideshow presentation and observe, record, and describe the role of ecological succession including both primary and secondary succession.
Texas Middle School Fluency Assessment (TMSFA)
Texas Education Code (TEC) §28.006(c-1) requires that students who do not meet the passing standard on the Grade 6 State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness (STAAR) reading test must be administered a reading assessment at the beginning of grade 7. The Texas Middle School Fluency Assessment (TMSFA) was developed with Texas students to be a valid and reliable instrument for determining students’ areas of instructional need.
The TMSFA is based on valid and reliable scientific research, thoroughly measures each domain of development, and is user-friendly. The following three domains of development are assessed using the TMSFA.
- Text Comprehension (Reading)
- Word Analysis
- Fluency
Biodiversity
Students will explore biodiversity concepts through several activities including a video, a card sort, think-pair-shares, food webs, and four corners.
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.
Building a Watershed
Students will model the effects of human activity on watersheds.
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.
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills Related to the Unit
Click below to learn about the TEKS related to this unit.
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
Click below to learn about the TEKS related to this unit.
Modeling the Path of Digestion
Students model the path of digestion using household items.
Crime Scene Inferences
In learning stations, students use textual evidence and personal schema to generate inferences, make generalizations, and draw conclusions to support understanding about expository text.
Inferring: It’s a Beast!
Using a digital forum, seventh-grade students will collaboratively generate authentic inferences about character motivation. Students will utilize textual evidence and draw from personal schema in order to make logical connections across multiple genres.
Remembering Leaders
Students will read expository text, categorize findings, and reformulate the text into an obituary.
Teacher poised for modeling
Are You Speaking Greek?
Students will be able to determine the meaning of words using Greek, Latin, or other linguistic roots and affixes.
A Reader’s Survival Guide: Connecting and Synthesizing Ideas in Nonfiction Texts
This lesson is designed to teach students to synthesize and make connections between ideas within a text and with previous texts students have read.
Intelligible Inferences
Students will work in cooperative learning groups that foster empathy to make inferences from pictures and text. They will discuss the differences between inferences made from pictures and inferences made from text.
Students working on poster
Food Chains, Food Webs, and Energy Pyramids
This resource provides flexible alternate or additional learning opportunities for students to diagram the flow of energy through living systems, Seventh Grade Science TEKS (7)(5)(C).
Introduction to Plate Tectonics
This resource is intended to use for Tier I classroom instruction.
Human Impact
This resource can be used, in conjunction with best practices, for Tier I classroom instruction.
Catch Me If You Can—Retelling "The Gingerbread Man"
Students retell or re-enact events in sequence from "The Gingerbread Man" using pictures.