Texas TEKS 7.1.G

Science7th GradeScientific and engineering practices

The Standard

develop and use models to represent phenomena, systems, processes, or solutions to engineering problems

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Science

Teacher's field guide

What Students Need to Do: Students create diagrams, physical objects, or simulations that explain how parts of a system interact. They use observations and test results to revise their models.
What Mastery Looks Like: Students include relevant parts, labels, relationships, and changes over time. They use the model to explain evidence, make a prediction, and identify a limitation.
Common Misconceptions: Students may treat a model as a decorative copy rather than an explanation. They may omit unseen parts, assume models are exact, or resist revising a model when evidence changes.
How to Assess It: Ask students to draw a particle model of sugar dissolving in water, then label the changes and predict what happens if more sugar is added.

Lesson moves

Use beads, cups, and craft sticks to build a model showing how particles move when a solid dissolves.
Show two models of the same phenomenon and ask students to write which explains the evidence better and why.
Play Model Match by pairing phenomenon cards with diagram cards, then have students defend or revise each match.
Map lunchtime cafeteria traffic, identify a bottleneck, and model one layout change that could improve movement.

Keep exploring

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