Texas TEKS 7.19.B

Social Studies7th GradeScience, technology, and society

The Standard

identify Texas leaders in science and technology such as Walter Cunningham, Michael DeBakey, Denton Cooley, Benjy Brooks, Michael Dell, and Howard Hughes Sr.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Social Studies

Teacher's field guide

What This Standard Means

What Students Need to Do

Students connect each leader to a field, achievement, invention, or organization. They explain how each person shaped spaceflight, medicine, computing, or energy technology in Texas.

What Mastery Looks Like

Students accurately match all six leaders with their main contributions. They can distinguish similar figures, especially Michael DeBakey from Denton Cooley and Howard Hughes Sr. from his son.

Common Misconceptions

Students often confuse DeBakey’s medical inventions with Cooley’s heart transplant work. They may mix up Howard Hughes Sr., who developed drilling technology, with Howard Hughes Jr., the aviator and filmmaker.

How to Assess It

Exit ticket: Match the six leaders to astronautics, heart surgery, pediatric surgery, personal computers, or drilling technology, then add one accurate detail for each.

Lesson moves

Ways to Teach It

  1. Set up six stations where students match leader photos, biography cards, and contribution cards, then record each match in a chart.

  2. Ask students to write which leader had the greatest effect on daily life and support the choice with two facts.

  3. Play a six-round Who Am I game using clues about Apollo 7, heart surgery, pediatric care, computers, and drilling tools.

  4. Students find a current hospital tool, computer, space mission, or oil industry device connected to one leader’s field and explain the link.

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