Texas TEKS 6.18.B

Social Studies6th GradeScience, technology, and society

The Standard

explain how resources, economic factors, and political decisions affect the use of technology

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Social Studies

Teacher's field guide

What Students Need to Do: Students explain why a technology is used more in one place than another. They connect available materials and infrastructure, costs and markets, and government rules or funding to technology choices.
What Mastery Looks Like: Given a case, students identify a resource, economic factor, or political decision and explain its effect. They support each cause-and-effect claim with details from the case.
Common Misconceptions: Students may assume new technology spreads everywhere at the same rate or that cost is the only barrier. They may also confuse a natural resource limit with a government restriction.
How to Assess It: Give students this prompt: “A country has strong sunlight, limited money, and tax support for solar panels. Explain how each factor affects solar use.”

Lesson moves

Give groups country cards, resource tokens, budget chips, and policy cards, then have them choose and justify one energy technology.
Ask students to write: “Why might two countries with similar resources use different technologies?” Require one economic and one political reason.
Play a cause-and-effect matching game using cards for resources, prices, laws, infrastructure, and technology outcomes.
Compare local electric vehicle charging maps with gasoline station maps, then discuss how cost, infrastructure, and public policy shape driver choices.

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