Texas TEKS 3.3.C
The Standard
describe the effects of human processes such as building new homes, conservation, and pollution in shaping the landscape.
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Social Studies
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students explain how people's choices change land, water, plants, and animal habitats. They connect an action to short-term and long-term results.
What Mastery Looks Like
- Students compare a place before and after people change it. They name the action, describe visible effects, and explain whether the effects help or harm the environment.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may think all construction is harmful or all conservation repairs damage immediately. They may confuse pollution with litter only and overlook dirty air, chemicals, noise, or polluted water.
How to Assess It
- Show two pictures of the same area before and after a neighborhood was built. Ask students to name two landscape changes and explain their causes.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Build two model landscapes in trays, then add paper houses to one and compare water flow, plants, and animal space.
Write a response to this prompt: Should an empty field become homes, a protected park, or both? Explain two effects.
Sort action and effect cards, then match pairs such as planting trees and reduced soil erosion, or dumping oil and polluted water.
Study a local construction site, park, or creek using photos, then list changes people caused and one possible solution.
Free download
Printable 3.3.C Worksheet
A ready-to-print activity worksheet aligned to 3.3.C, with an answer key for the teacher on its own page. No account needed.
PDF, US Letter, prints cleanly in black and white.
Download the worksheetKeep exploring
Related Standards
- 8.11.B
describe the positive and negative consequences of human modification of the physical environment of the United States.
- 2.5.A
identify ways in which people have modified the physical environment such as clearing land, building roads, using land for agriculture, and drilling for oil;
- 2.5.B
identify consequences of human modification of the physical environment; and
- 6.5.C
identify and analyze ways people have modified the physical environment such as mining, irrigation, and transportation infrastructure
Turn this exact standard into a lesson
Grade, subject, topic, and the complete standard are prefilled. Create one free, no account needed.
Also for this standard:Make a WorksheetMake a QuizMake a Sub Lesson