Texas TEKS 5.2.B

Science5th GradeScientific and engineering practices

The Standard

analyze data by identifying any significant features, patterns, or sources of error

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Science

Teacher's field guide

What Students Need to Do: Students inspect tables, graphs, and measurements for trends, repeated results, sudden changes, and unusual values. They use evidence to suggest where measurement or procedure errors may have affected the data.
What Mastery Looks Like: A student can describe a noticeable pattern and point to specific values that support it. The student can identify an unusual result and explain a reasonable source of error.
Common Misconceptions: Students may call any small difference a pattern or assume every unusual value is a mistake. They may say “human error” without naming a specific problem, such as misreading a scale or changing the procedure.
How to Assess It: Exit ticket: A plant measured 2, 4, 6, 8, and 15 centimeters over five weeks. Name one pattern, one significant feature, and one possible source of error.

Lesson moves

Have groups roll a toy car down the same ramp five times, time each run, graph results, and flag patterns and likely timing errors.
Show a bean-plant height graph with one sudden spike; students write whether it signals real change or error and cite evidence.
Play Data Detective: teams sort data cards into pattern, significant feature, or possible error, then defend one choice.
Compare seven days of local temperatures, identify a trend or unusual value, and suggest how a weather sensor could misread.

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