ODESSA, Texas — Nearly four years ago, the State Board of Education approved the new science Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) for K-12 public schools.
The Texas Education Agency expects these standards to be fully implemented during the 2024-2025 school year. On May 1, 2024 the TEA launched its first Science TEKS guide.
Some schools in West Texas have already been carrying out these standards, including Ector County ISD. Caitlin Couch is the ECISD Science Coordinator and is also the President for the Texas Science Education Leadership Association. According to Couch, the group of leaders across the state had a voice in the creation of the new TEKS.
"It really is an entire shift in the way that we think and do science here in the state of Texas," said Couch. "This rewrite really does align our state standards with the national standards; and it allows for our students to really mirror the practices and the investigations that a scientist or an engineer would actually do in the field."
According to Couch, public schools will be shifting from the traditional to dimensional learning, which is content and processing or lab skills, to three-dimensional learning.
"Think back to when you look back on your childhood years and one of the things that sticks out is science because it is so hands on.... We get to tinker and hone in on our curiosity and try to find a solution to the problem," said Couch. "This shifts allow us to wonder about all the things that are happening and really act on those wonders."
The new science TEKS also incorporates themes that help educators tie all of the scientific disciplines together.
"Everything in our three-dimensional learning is all centralized around an anchoring phenomena... it means an event that happens in the natural world," said Couch. "We will pose an anchoring phenomena and within the lesson cycle, we will have smaller phenomena that they can use to help explain the very big one. We call our big one our anchoring phenomena."
Couch shared most states have adopted the next generation science standards.
"This does align with those and this this whole transition is backed by extensive research. We really are aligning our science standards with the national standards," said Couch.