Accompanying Texas Aquatic Science is a comprehensive Teacher Guide. The Teacher Guide is available to educators for free download at the following website address:
Texas Parks and Wildlife: https://tpwd.texas.gov/publications/learning/aquaticscience/
To ensure the protection of answers throughout the Texas Aquatic Science Teacher Guide and its sub-parts, they are password protected. Click the Access Request Form (hyperlinked to the current form) to verify your email and receive the password.
Teacher Guide and Answer Key (password protected)
Access Request FormTEKS – Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills
2018 Revised
The textbook and activities are aligned with the state curriculum standards, the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for sixth through eighth grade and for Aquatic Science and Environmental Science courses for high school. Revisions to TEKS are provided for download or viewing.
Teacher Guide Description
Students are introduced to the wide variety of aquatic ecosystems through science investigations, games, models, cooperative learning activities, Internet projects, readings from the student guides, short videos, science journals, and field based assessments of water quality and environmental conditions in a variety of field trips. Students use multiple intelligences to learn and to demonstrate their new knowledge in creative products and performances.
The guide is linked to short videos, which provide an overview of the main ideas in each chapter and to Texas Aquatic Science, which provides clear concise scientific information in an interesting way with illustrations of important concepts, which help clarify major ideas. The curriculum looks at water from the molecular level to the level of aquatic ecosystems, providing activities to guide students through the understanding that the characteristics of the water molecule make it unique in its value to all of life, and conservation of water is a priority for all of us.
Standards – TEKS
The activities are aligned with the state curriculum standards, the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for sixth through eighth grade and for Aquatic Science and Environmental Science courses for high school.
Educational Perspective
Lessons in each chapter begin with an activity to allow the teacher to assess what students know about the concepts to be studied. Lessons embed higher order thinking skills, provide depth and complexity of learning, and provide a wide variety of hands-on activities that engage students in a variety of contexts and methods.
Each lesson includes an opportunity for students to apply what they have learned by synthesizing the information and demonstrating their learning by developing creative products or performances. Activities are designed to be inexpensive and to use the materials that are already in most classrooms. Teachers will find the activities easy to implement and fun for students. Teaching materials for some lessons such as aquatic organism game cards, posters, and videos are linked to the curriculum guide and easy for teachers to download and print or view.
Assessment
Each chapter provides multiple opportunities for assessment. The first lesson in each chapter provides a formative assessment to help teachers plan for appropriate student learning and to help students focus on what is to come. In addition, every lesson has a component to allow students the opportunity to synthesize what they have learned and apply it in creative products and presentations. The student reading also includes questions at the beginning of the chapter, which help students know what to focus on in the reading. These questions help scaffold the reading level for younger students and provide another type of assessment for the teacher to consider. Student science journals are also useful for formative and summative assessments. Each field trip provides opportunities for performance assessment At the end of each chapter there are a multiple choice and open-ended questions for students along with an answer key. The open-ended questions have many possible answers.