Texas TEKS 4.5.B
The Standard
explain the development and impact of the oil and gas industry on industrialization and urbanization in Texas, including Spindletop and important people such as Pattillo Higgins.
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Social Studies
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students explain how the Spindletop discovery led to more oil production, factories, transportation, jobs, and city growth. They describe Pattillo Higgins's role in promoting oil exploration at Spindletop.
What Mastery Looks Like
- Students can build an accurate cause-and-effect chain from oil discovery to industrial and urban growth. They can use a map, timeline, or short paragraph to support the explanation with facts.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may think Higgins drilled the famous gusher, rather than promoted the site and helped begin exploration. They may confuse industrialization, growth in manufacturing, with urbanization, growth in cities. They may also assume all Texas cities grew equally because of oil.
How to Assess It
- Give students this exit prompt: “Explain two ways Spindletop changed Texas, and describe Pattillo Higgins's role in the events.”
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Have groups arrange event cards showing Higgins's prediction, the Spindletop gusher, new refineries, new jobs, and Beaumont's population growth.
Ask students to write: “How could one oil discovery change where Texans worked and lived?”
Play a cause-and-effect matching game using cards for oil discoveries, refineries, railroads, jobs, migration, and growing cities.
Inspect plastic classroom objects, then connect petroleum products to Texas factories, jobs, transportation, and the growth of nearby cities.
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Printable 4.5.B Worksheet
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