Fourth-grade science will combine observation, experimentation, investigation, and careful study to meet the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS). Students will learn established scientific knowledge, but they will also practice the habits scientists use to understand the natural world: asking questions, observing carefully, collecting and interpreting evidence, identifying patterns, testing ideas, and communicating what they discover.
An important goal of our science program is to cultivate a sense of wonder. Before children can investigate why something happens, they must first learn to notice that something remarkable is happening at all. We want students who look closely at a seed, a stone, a cloud, an animal, or the night sky and begin asking, “Why does it do that?” “How does this work?” and “What would happen if…?”
The Texas science standards organize fourth-grade learning around several interconnected areas:
Scientific and Engineering Practices — Students ask questions, plan and conduct investigations, use appropriate scientific tools, collect and analyze data, develop explanations, communicate evidence, and practice laboratory and field safety.
Matter and Energy — Students investigate the properties of matter and explore how materials can be classified, combined, and changed. They also study forms of energy and how energy is transferred and used.
Force, Motion, and Energy — Students investigate forces and their effects on objects, including pushes and pulls, gravity, friction, and magnetism, while connecting these observations to patterns of motion and energy.
Earth and Space — Students study Earth's natural resources, weather and patterns in the atmosphere, the water cycle, changes to Earth's surface, and relationships among the Sun, Earth, and Moon.
Organisms and Environments — Students investigate structures and functions of living things, life cycles, inherited and acquired traits, adaptations, food webs, ecosystems, and the ways organisms depend upon one another and their environments.
Recurring Themes and Concepts — Throughout every unit, students will look for larger scientific ideas such as patterns, cause and effect, systems, structure and function, stability and change, and relationships between parts of a system. These ideas help students recognize that science is not simply a collection of unrelated facts—it is a way of understanding an ordered and interconnected natural world.
Some of the best science laboratories don't have walls.
I strongly encourage families to take advantage of parks, nature centers, trails, state parks, and our nation's extraordinary system of public lands. A child who has actually watched water shape a landscape, examined different rocks, compared leaves, searched for animal tracks, observed insects, or noticed how vegetation changes from one environment to another has experiences to connect with what we study in a book.
And fourth grade comes with a special opportunity: fourth graders are eligible for the federal Every Kid Outdoors pass, which provides access to participating national parks and other federal lands and waters during their fourth-grade year.
Bring a notebook. Take a hike. Read the historical markers. Look under a log. Identify a bird. Examine a rock. Sit quietly for five minutes and write down everything you notice.
We study the natural world so that children can know it, wonder at it, and learn to care for it. Conservation begins when children recognize that the places, plants, animals, and resources around them are worth understanding and preserving.
The goal is not simply to know more about the world. It is to learn how to see it.
Science resources will be added here throughout the year as our investigations progress, including materials that can help families extend classroom learning through observation, exploration, and investigation at home and outdoors.