Texas TEKS 7.12.B
The Standard
describe how ecosystems are sustained by the continuous flow of energy and the recycling of matter and nutrients within the biosphere.
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Science
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students trace energy from sunlight through producers, consumers, and decomposers. They explain how water, carbon, and nutrients are reused, while some energy leaves as heat.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student can label energy movement and matter cycling in a food web or ecosystem diagram. The student can explain why decomposers support continued plant growth.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may think energy cycles back to producers or that matter disappears when organisms die. They may also overlook decomposers or confuse matter with energy.
How to Assess It
- Give students a food web with the Sun, grass, rabbit, hawk, fungi, and soil. Ask them to add arrows and explain what cycles and what does not.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Use colored beads and organism cards to model energy loss and nutrient reuse across producers, consumers, decomposers, and soil.
Ask students to write why a sealed terrarium still needs sunlight even though its water and nutrients are reused.
Play a card sort where students classify examples as energy transfer, matter recycling, decomposition, or nutrient storage.
Examine a compost bin and trace how food scraps become nutrients that support new plant growth.
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Printable 7.12.B Worksheet
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Related Standards
- 6.5.E
analyze and explain how energy flows and matter cycles through systems and how energy and matter are conserved through a variety of systems;
- 4.12.B
describe the cycling of matter and flow of energy through food webs, including the roles of the Sun, producers, consumers, and decomposers; and
- 8.5.E
analyze and explain how energy flows and matter cycles through systems and how energy and matter are conserved through a variety of systems
- 7.12
Organisms and environments. The student understands that ecosystems are dependent upon the cycling of matter and the flow of energy. The student is expected to:
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