🔬Scientific and Engineering Practices (SEPs)
Students spend at least 40% of instructional time on scientific and engineering practices. These four standards span planning investigations, analyzing data, communicating findings, and understanding science's role in society.
Asking Questions & Conducting Investigations
Plan and safely conduct classroom, laboratory, and field investigations using appropriate tools and models.
Analyzing & Interpreting Data
Identify features, patterns, and relationships in data to develop evidence-based arguments or evaluate designs.
Developing Explanations & Communicating Findings
Develop evidence-based explanations and communicate findings, conclusions, and proposed solutions.
Scientific Research & Innovation
Recognize contributions of scientists and the importance of scientific research and innovation on society.
🔁Recurring Themes and Concepts (RTCs)
Recurring themes provide a framework for making connections across disciplines. Themes include structure and function, systems, models, and patterns described in space, time, energy, and matter.
Patterns
Identify and apply patterns to understand and connect scientific phenomena or to design solutions.
Cause and Effect
Identify and investigate cause-and-effect relationships to explain scientific phenomena or analyze problems.
Scale, Proportion, and Quantity
Analyze how differences in scale, proportion, or quantity affect a system's structure or performance.
Systems and System Models
Examine and model the parts of a system and their interdependence in the function of the system.
Energy and Matter
Analyze and explain how energy flows and matter cycles through systems and how energy and matter are conserved.
Structure and Function
Analyze and explain the complementary relationship between structure and function of objects, organisms, and systems.
Stability and Change
Analyze and explain how factors or conditions impact stability and change in objects, organisms, and systems.
📚Curriculum Framework
Middle school science content is organized into four recurring content strands that build across Grades 6–8, plus the cross-cutting SEPs and RTCs.
Matter and Energy
Properties of matter, atoms, elements, compounds, mixtures, chemical changes, and conservation of mass.
Force, Motion, and Energy
Forces, Newton's Laws, speed, velocity, acceleration, energy transfers, waves, and thermal energy.
Earth and Space
Solar system, stars, galaxies, Earth's structure, plate tectonics, weather, climate, and resource management.
Organisms and Environments
Cells, body systems, ecosystems, energy flow, biodiversity, adaptation, genetics, and taxonomy.
🔍Standards Browser
Choose a grade level and strand to browse the TEKS standards. Each standard expands to show student expectations with STAAR designations.
Grade 6 Science
§112.26 — Science, Grade 6, Adopted 2021
🔬Scientific and Engineering Practices (SEPs)
🔁Recurring Themes and Concepts (RTCs)
⚗️Matter and Energy
⚡Force, Motion, and Energy
🌎Earth and Space
🌿Organisms and Environments
⭐STAAR Assessment Spotlight
The STAAR Middle School Science assessment is administered in Grade 8 and covers eligible TEKS from Grades 6–8. Standards are designated as Readiness (★) or Supporting (◇).
Effective as of the 2025–2026 school year. SEPs and RTCs are embedded throughout the assessment and are not tested in isolation.
★ Readiness Standards (10)
Use the periodic table to identify the atoms and the number of each kind within a chemical formula.
Describe how plate tectonics causes ocean basin formation, earthquakes, mountain building, and volcanic eruptions, including supervolcanoes and hot spots.
Investigate how mass is conserved in chemical reactions and relate conservation of mass to the rearrangement of atoms using chemical equations, including pho...
Calculate and analyze how the acceleration of an object is dependent upon the net force acting on the object and the mass of the object using Newton's Second...
Investigate and describe how Newton's three laws of motion act simultaneously within systems such as in vehicle restraints, sports activities, amusement park...
Describe the life cycle of stars and compare and classify stars using the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram.
Describe how energy from the Sun, hydrosphere, and atmosphere interact and influence weather and climate.
Describe how primary and secondary ecological succession affect populations and species diversity after ecosystems are disrupted by natural events or human a...
Identify the function of the cell membrane, cell wall, nucleus, ribosomes, cytoplasm, mitochondria, chloroplasts, and vacuoles in plant or animal cells.
Describe how variations of traits within a population lead to structural, behavioral, and physiological adaptations that influence the likelihood of survival...
◇ Supporting Standards (32)
Identify elements on the periodic table as metals, nonmetals, metalloids, and rare Earth elements based on their physical properties and importance to modern...
Compare the density of substances relative to various fluids.
Identify the formation of a new substance by using the evidence of a possible chemical change, including production of a gas, change in thermal energy, produ...
Identify and explain how forces act on objects, including gravity, friction, magnetism, applied forces, and normal forces, using real-world applications.
Calculate the net force on an object in a horizontal or vertical direction using diagrams and determine if the forces are balanced or unbalanced.
Describe how energy is conserved through transfers and transformations in systems such as electrical circuits, food webs, amusement park rides, or photosynth...
Explain how energy is transferred through transverse and longitudinal waves.
Model and illustrate how the tilted Earth revolves around the Sun, causing changes in seasons.
Describe and predict how the positions of the Earth, Sun, and Moon cause daily, spring, and neap cycles of ocean tides due to gravitational forces.
Model and describe the layers of Earth, including the inner core, outer core, mantle, and crust.
Investigate how organisms and populations in an ecosystem depend on and may compete for biotic factors such as food and abiotic factors such as availability ...
Describe the historical development of cell theory and explain how organisms are composed of one or more cells, which come from pre-existing cells and are th...
Distinguish between physical and chemical changes in matter.
Calculate average speed using distance and time measurements from investigations.
Distinguish between speed and velocity in linear motion in terms of distance, displacement, and direction.
Measure, record, and interpret an object's motion using distance-time graphs.
Investigate methods of thermal energy transfer into and out of systems, including conduction, convection, and radiation.
Explain the relationship between temperature and the kinetic energy of the particles within a substance.
Describe how gravity governs motion within Earth's solar system.
Describe the evidence that supports that Earth has changed over time, including fossil evidence, plate tectonics, and superposition.
Analyze the beneficial and harmful influences of human activity on groundwater and surface water in a watershed.
Describe human dependence and influence on ocean systems and explain how human activities impact these systems.
Diagram the flow of energy within trophic levels and describe how the available energy decreases in successive trophic levels in energy pyramids.
Identify and model the main functions of the systems of the human organism, including the circulatory, respiratory, skeletal, muscular, digestive, urinary, r...
Compare the results of asexual and sexual reproduction of plants and animals in relation to the diversity of offspring and the changes in the population over...
Describe and give examples of how natural and artificial selection change the occurrence of traits in a population over generations.
Compare the characteristics of amplitude, frequency, and wavelength in transverse waves, including the electromagnetic spectrum.
Categorize galaxies as spiral, elliptical, and irregular and locate Earth's solar system within the Milky Way galaxy.
Identify global patterns of atmospheric movement and how they influence local weather.
Describe the interactions between ocean currents and air masses that produce tropical cyclones, including typhoons and hurricanes.
Describe how biodiversity contributes to the stability and sustainability of an ecosystem and the health of the organisms within the ecosystem.
Describe the function of genes within chromosomes in determining inherited traits of offspring.
📖Background & Key Information
Adoption & Implementation
- •Adopted by the State Board of Education in 2021.
- •Effective dates: April 26, 2022, via 47 TexReg 2136.
- •Updated August 2024 (Grade 6 amended via 49 TexReg 1928).
- •Implemented beginning 2024-2025 school year.
Scientific & Engineering Practices
- •At least 40% of instructional time must be dedicated to SEPs.
- •4 SEP knowledge and skills statements per grade level.
- •Scientific practices: ask questions, investigate, explain phenomena.
- •Engineering practices: identify problems, design solutions.
STAAR Assessment
- •Middle School Science is administered in Grade 8.
- •Covers eligible TEKS from Grades 6, 7, and 8.
- •10 Readiness Standards and 32 Supporting Standards.
- •SEPs and RTCs are embedded, not tested in isolation.
Terminology Guide
- •"Including" = content that must be mastered.
- •"Such as" = possible illustrative examples, not required.
- •Descriptive investigations have no hypothesis.
- •Experimental investigations test a hypothesis with a control.
Recurring Themes & Concepts
- •7 RTC expectations per grade level (A through G).
- •Themes: patterns, cause-effect, scale, systems, energy/matter, structure/function, stability/change.
- •Provide a framework for cross-disciplinary connections.
- •Identical across all three middle school grade levels.
Content Organization
- •4 content strands: Matter & Energy, Force/Motion/Energy, Earth & Space, Organisms & Environments.
- •Concepts build across grades 6-8 within each strand.
- •Foundation established for high school science courses.
- •Grade 8 integrates all prior knowledge for STAAR readiness.