Nervous System Functions Lesson Plan (TEKS 7.13A): A Complete 5E Lesson for the Brain, Spinal Cord, Neurons, and How the Body Sends Signals

Chris Kesler · 10 min read

The first year I taught the nervous system to 7th graders, I tried to start with neurons. Sensory, motor, interneurons. Dendrites, axons, synapses. By the end of the period, kids looked like I had handed them a chemistry equation. Glassy eyes. Polite nodding. Zero understanding. I had led with the vocabulary and lost the room.

The next year I scrapped that and started with a quarter. I told kids I was going to drop a quarter and they had to catch it before it hit the ground. Then I went around the room dropping the coin into each kid's hand from about a foot up. Almost everybody caught it. Then I asked them how. Nobody could explain it. "My eyes saw it, then my hand grabbed it" was the best they had. That opened the door to the real story: sensory neurons sent the signal to the brain, the brain decided to act, motor neurons told the hand to close. From there, every concept had a hook.

That's the core idea behind this 5E lesson for TEKS 7.13A. Students don't just memorize the parts of the nervous system. They explore reflexes, reaction time, and the brain's three main regions, and walk away understanding how electrical signals travel through the body in milliseconds.

⏱ About 10 class periods 📓 7th Grade Life Science 🧠 TEKS 7.13A 🎯 Differentiated for D + M 💻 Print or Digital

Inside the Nervous System Functions 5E Lesson

The 5E instructional model walks students through five phases: Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Evaluate. It flips the traditional lecture-first sequence on its head. Students explore a concept hands-on before you ever explain it, which means by the time you do explain it, they have something to hook the vocabulary onto.

I switched to the 5E model years ago and stopped going back. Kids retain more, ask better questions, and stop staring at me waiting to be told the answer. The Nervous System Functions 5E Lesson is built on this framework from start to finish. Here's how it plays out across the five phases.

🎯 Engage

I CAN statement and key vocabulary for the nervous system functions lesson

Day one is a teacher-led hands-on reaction-time experiment. Each pair of students gets a ruler. One partner holds the ruler vertically by the top, the other holds their thumb and index finger open at the bottom (without touching the ruler). The top partner drops the ruler at a random moment, and the bottom partner has to catch it as fast as they can. The catch distance becomes a measurement of reaction time. After three trials per partner, students compare results and talk about why it took time at all for the signal to get from the eye to the hand.

By the end of the period, kids have their reaction-time data on a student sheet and they can explain in their own words that a signal had to travel from the eyes, through the brain, and back out to the hand before the hand could move. Nobody has heard a vocabulary lecture yet. That's the point. They're walking into the rest of the unit with a working mental model of signal travel, not a memorized definition.

What's included in the Engage:

Teacher directions for the reaction-time experiment
Printable student observation sheet with data table
Answer key for the discussion questions
Four learning objective slides (standard verbatim, "Describe" verb highlighted, "I CAN...", and "WE WILL...")
An illustrated Body Systems Word Wall in English and Spanish covering the full unit vocabulary

🔬 Explore

📷 Explore image 1 — wide shot of Station Lab in action

The Nervous System Functions Station Lab is the heart of the Explore phase. Students rotate through 8 stations (plus a 9th challenge station for early finishers) over one class period. The Station Lab is split into four input stations (where kids take in new information) and four output stations (where they show what they learned).

The four input stations:

🎬 Watch It! — Students watch a short video on the central and peripheral nervous systems and answer guided questions about how neurons carry electrical signals.
📖 Read It! — A one-page reading passage at two differentiated levels, with a Spanish version included.
🔬 Explore It! — Students test their five senses through quick, low-stakes mini-experiments (a touch-discrimination test, a taste-without-smell test, a sound-localization test) and record which sensory neurons each one involves.
💻 Research It! — Reference cards on the three types of neurons (sensory, motor, interneurons), the central vs. peripheral nervous system, and the three main regions of the brain.

The four output stations:

📋 Organize It! — A card sort where students place body parts and functions into Central Nervous System or Peripheral Nervous System and justify their choice.
🎨 Illustrate It! — Students draw a labeled diagram of a neuron showing dendrites, cell body, axon, and synapse, and label the direction the signal travels.
✍️ Write It! — Three open-ended questions in complete sentences (this is where you see who really understands reflex arcs).
📝 Assess It! — A short formative check with multiple choice and a fill-in-the-blank vocabulary paragraph.

📷 Explore image 2 — close-up of featured station (Explore It! or Organize It!)

Print and digital versions are both included. If you want the full breakdown of what happens at every single station, what students produce, and how to set it up, that's in our dedicated Station Lab post.

→ Read the full Nervous System Functions Station Lab walkthrough 8 stations, materials list, teacher tips

The Station Lab is included in the full 5E lesson. You don't need to buy it separately if you're getting the whole unit.

📚 Explain

📷 Explain image 1 — Presentation slide screenshot

Here's the real payoff of doing the Engage and Explore before the Explain: by the time kids hit this phase, they've already measured their own reaction time and run the five-senses experiments. They have a working understanding before you ever start naming things. The discussions get deeper, the questions get sharper, and you spend less time defining and more time pushing their thinking.

The Nervous System Functions Presentation walks 7th graders through the full scope of TEKS 7.13A for this system, one concept at a time. The deck opens with the big idea: the nervous system sends and receives information about everything happening inside and outside the body. It does this with electrical signals, and the whole network is split into two sub-systems. The central nervous system is the control center, made up of the brain and spinal cord, protected by the skull and vertebrae. The peripheral nervous system is the network of nerves that branches out from the brain and spinal cord to every other part of the body. The peripheral system splits again into the somatic nervous system (voluntary actions, the five senses) and the autonomic nervous system (involuntary actions like breathing, digesting, and your heartbeat).

📷 Explain image (middle) — Presentation slide screenshot (classification hierarchy, Essential Question, or category comparison)

From there the deck zooms in on the brain, which has three main regions. The cerebrum is the large outer part that handles thinking, memory, the senses, and voluntary movement. The cerebellum sits at the back of the head and controls balance, coordination, and muscle memory. The brainstem connects the brain to the spinal cord and handles the essentials like breathing, heart rate, and reflexes. The deck includes a side-by-side comparison of the left and right hemispheres of the cerebrum (left more responsible for logic and language, right more responsible for spatial reasoning and creativity), with a Quick Action INB task where students sort activities like solving math problems and drawing a picture into the right hemisphere.

Then the lesson tackles neurons, which are the cells that actually carry the signal. A neuron has dendrites (which receive the signal), a cell body, and an axon (which sends the signal to the next neuron). The three types are sensory neurons (carry signals from the senses to the brain), motor neurons (carry signals from the brain to the muscles), and interneurons (connect sensory and motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord). Once kids see those three working together, reflexes start to make sense. A reflex is a signal that doesn't have to travel all the way to the brain before action happens. When you touch a hot stove, the sensory neuron in your hand carries the signal to your spinal cord, an interneuron there immediately fires the motor neuron back out, and your hand jerks away. Your brain finds out a fraction of a second later. That's why reflexes are so fast.

📷 Explain image 2 — Presentation slide screenshot

The deck closes by tying the nervous system back to the other body systems it controls. The nervous and muscular systems work together because motor neurons tell skeletal muscles when to contract. The nervous and respiratory systems work together because the brainstem controls breathing rate without you thinking about it. The nervous and circulatory systems work together because the autonomic nervous system speeds the heart up and slows it down based on what the body needs. That cross-system thinking is exactly what TEKS 7.13A is asking for.

What makes the Nervous System Functions Presentation different from a typical body-systems slideshow is that kids are doing something on almost every slide. It's not a lecture deck. It's a participation deck. "Your answer:" prompts appear on most slides, Brain Breaks reset attention every few slides, and Quick Action INB tasks (neuron-type matching, brain-region sorting, reflex-arc mapping) show up throughout. Think About It prompts push deeper into bigger ideas like why concussions affect personality and how the autonomic nervous system controls your body during sleep. The deck closes with a Check for Understanding tied back to the Essential Questions: What is the main function of the nervous system? and How does the nervous system interact with the other body systems?

The Explain materials in this product include:

An editable Presentation at two differentiated levels (Dependent and Modified), works in PowerPoint or Google Slides
A guided fill-in-the-blank student notes handout that mirrors the Presentation, with answer key
A Paper Interactive Notebook (English and Spanish) students cut, fold, and glue into their notebooks
A Digital Interactive Notebook at both levels with answer keys, for 1:1 classrooms or Google Classroom

The Explain runs across two class periods. The built-in Think About It prompts are where the real discussion happens, so let those breathe.

🛠️ Elaborate

Student choice project options and rubric for the nervous system functions lesson

The Elaborate phase is where students stretch what they learned about the nervous system and put it into a project of their choosing. In this 7th grade life science lesson, that's a Student Choice Project board with six different project options plus a "design your own" pathway.

Students might build a 3-D model of a neuron with labeled parts and show the direction a signal travels, design an infographic of the three main regions of the brain with the jobs each one handles, write a comic strip following a single nerve signal from a hot stove to a quick hand-jerk reflex, or record a short video walking through the central vs. peripheral nervous system using their own body as a tour guide. There are options for kids who love to write, kids who love to draw, kids who love to build, and kids who love to perform. Whatever the project, the point is the same: students apply neurons, reflexes, and brain regions to a real-world artifact instead of a worksheet.

Choice is the whole point. By letting students pick how they show their thinking, you get more authentic work for TEKS 7.13A and you actually get to see what they understand about the nervous system.

The rubric (the part teachers actually want)

Every project, no matter which option a student picks, is graded on the same rubric. Five categories at 20 points each:

Vocabulary (20 pts) — At least four words from the lesson are used in context.
Concepts (20 pts) — At least two key concepts from the lesson are referenced.
Presentation (20 pts) — The project grabs attention and is well-organized.
Clarity (20 pts) — Easy to understand. Free of typos.
Accuracy (20 pts) — Drawings and models are accurate. The science is right.

The rubric uses a minus / check / plus shorthand on every row so you can grade a stack of projects quickly without re-reading every criterion.

Two differentiated versions in one file

The standard version is for students ready for independent application of nervous system ideas. The Reinforcement version is for students who need additional vocabulary or concept support. Three of the six options are swapped for projects with a tighter vocabulary tie-in, and "design your own" is replaced with "collaborate with the teacher" so kids aren't pitching cold.

✅ Evaluate

The Evaluate phase wraps the unit with a formal assessment. It's not all bubble-in. Several questions show students brain diagrams and reflex-arc images and ask them to identify the region, the neuron type, or the path the signal travels.

The full assessment has 12 questions across five formats:

Multiple choice (4 questions) covering central vs. peripheral nervous system, neuron types, brain regions, and reflexes
Hotspot / visual (2 questions) where students click the cerebellum on a brain diagram and identify the axon on a neuron diagram
Multiselect (2 questions) where students pick all the parts of the central nervous system and all the actions controlled by the autonomic nervous system
Short answer (2 questions) on how a reflex arc lets the body react without conscious thought, and on how the nervous and muscular systems work together for movement
Multipart scenario (2 questions) with a real-world example (a student catching a falling pencil) where students identify the senses involved, the neuron types in the path, and the brain region that processed the action

A modified version is included for students who need additional support. Fewer multiple-choice distractors and sentence-starter scaffolds on the short-answer items.

If you've taught all five phases, this assessment shouldn't surprise anyone. It's a chance for kids to show you they get it.

How everything fits together

If you want the whole experience (Engage hook, the Station Lab as the Explore, the Explain day with Presentation and interactive notebook, the Student Choice Elaborate, and the Evaluate assessment all in one download), that's the Nervous System Functions Complete 5E Science Lesson.

If you only need the one-day hands-on activity, the Station Lab works as a standalone. Most teachers buy the full 5E because the Station Lab works harder when it's bookended by a strong Engage and a follow-up Explain. But both are honest options.

Two options

Nervous System Functions Complete 5E Lesson cover

Full 5E Lesson — ~10 class periods $13.20 Get the 5E Lesson

Just the Station Lab — 1–2 class periods $7.20

What you need to teach Nervous System Functions (TEKS 7.13A)

Materials beyond what's in the download:

Rulers (one per pair of students) for the Engage reaction-time experiment
Blindfolds or pieces of cloth, small food items, and toothpicks for the Explore It! five-senses mini-experiments
Index cards for the central vs. peripheral nervous system sort at the Organize It! station
Pencils, colored pencils or markers, and printed student pages
A device with internet for the Watch It! station and the slide deck

Standard covered: Texas TEKS 7.13A — Describe the function and interactions of major body systems in organisms, including the skeletal, muscular, nervous, respiratory, integumentary, circulatory, endocrine, digestive, immune, and urinary systems. See the full standard breakdown →

Grade level: 7th grade science

Time: About 10 class periods of 45 minutes each, done with fidelity. The product also ships with a compressed sample unit plan if you need to move faster.

Common misconceptions this lesson clears up

"The brain and the mind are the same thing"
This one is a great class discussion, because kids use the words interchangeably and they're not exactly the same. The brain is the physical organ. About three pounds of soft, spongy tissue made of billions of neurons, full of blood vessels, with three main regions (cerebrum, cerebellum, brainstem). You can see it on an MRI, weigh it, or, in the case of cadavers, hold it. The mind is what the brain produces. Thoughts, feelings, memories, decisions, personality. You can't hold the mind, weigh it, or see it on a scan. The brain is the hardware. The mind is the software running on that hardware. Damage to the brain (like a concussion or stroke) often changes the mind, which is the evidence that one runs on the other.
"Reflexes go through the brain first"
Reflexes are fast specifically because they skip the brain. When you touch a hot stove, the signal travels from the sensory neuron in your hand to your spinal cord. In the spinal cord, an interneuron fires the motor neuron back out to your hand muscles, and your hand jerks away. All of that happens before the signal ever reaches your brain. The brain finds out a fraction of a second later, which is why you feel the pain after you've already pulled your hand away. This shortcut is called a reflex arc, and your body uses it for anything that would cause harm if it had to wait for the brain to weigh in. Sneezing, blinking, the knee-jerk reflex at the doctor's office, all of these run through the spinal cord, not the brain.
"Brain cells regenerate just like skin cells"
Most cells in your body replace themselves constantly. Skin cells turn over every few weeks. Stomach lining replaces itself every few days. But neurons in the brain and spinal cord don't work that way. The vast majority of the neurons you were born with are the ones you have for life, and once a neuron dies, in most regions of the brain, the body cannot make a new one to replace it. Scientists have found a few small areas where new neurons do form (like the hippocampus, which is involved in memory), but compared to skin or blood cells, regeneration is rare. This is why brain injuries are so serious and why protecting the skull is one of the skeletal system's most important jobs.
"We only use 10% of our brain"
This one shows up in movies all the time, and it's completely wrong. Brain imaging studies have shown that we use essentially all of our brain, just not all at once. Different regions activate for different tasks. The visual cortex lights up when you look at something. The motor cortex lights up when you move. The auditory cortex lights up when you hear sound. Even when you're sleeping, large portions of your brain are still active running essential body functions through the brainstem. If 90% of the brain really were unused, brain injuries to most areas wouldn't cause any problems, but we know that even small strokes or concussions can have major effects. There's no hidden 90% waiting to be unlocked. You're using it all already.

What's included in the Nervous System Functions 5E Lesson download

📷 Inside-the-product — add screenshot of Read It passage or sample answer sheet

When you buy the Nervous System Functions Complete 5E Lesson, you get a single download with the whole unit:

✅ Engage materials — teacher directions, student observation sheet, answer key, four learning objective slides, illustrated Body Systems Word Wall (English + Spanish)
✅ The full Station Lab — 8 stations + 1 challenge, print and digital, two reading levels, Spanish Read It!
✅ Explain materials — editable Presentation at two differentiated levels (with built-in Brain Breaks, Quick Action INB tasks, and Think About It prompts), guided fill-in-the-blank student notes handout with answer key, Paper Interactive Notebook (English + Spanish), Digital Interactive Notebook at two levels with answer keys
✅ Elaborate (Student Choice Projects) — 6 project options + design-your-own, plus a Reinforcement version with vocabulary-focused alternatives, 5-category rubric included
✅ Summative assessment — full 12-question version and modified version with sentence-starter scaffolds, both with answer keys
✅ Sample unit plan — day-by-day pacing guide

A couple of real-talk tips from running this lesson

1. Use the reaction-time ruler experiment as a baseline.

Have kids record their reaction-time data from Day 1 in their notebook and come back to it at the end of the unit. After they learn about sensory neurons, motor neurons, and signal travel, run the experiment again. Compare the data and talk about whether "knowing the science" actually made anyone faster. The discussion is gold.

2. Teach the reflex arc with the hot-stove example every time.

Don't switch examples. Use the hot stove every single time you describe a reflex. By the third time you walk through it (sensory neuron in the finger, interneuron in the spinal cord, motor neuron back to the hand muscles), the whole class can recite the path. Repetition with one strong example beats variety here.

3. Save the brain-as-organ wow moment for the end.

Show a real (or model) brain image only after kids have mapped the three regions on paper. If you show a brain on slide one, kids are mesmerized and stop listening. Show it on slide twelve and they have something to map their new knowledge onto.

Get the Nervous System Functions 5E Lesson

Buy the full Nervous System Functions 5E Lesson — $13.20

Frequently asked questions

Does this cover all of TEKS 7.13A?

For the nervous system, yes. The full standard asks students to describe the function and interactions of all 10 major body systems. This lesson covers the nervous system in depth, including the central and peripheral systems and how it interacts with the muscular, respiratory, and circulatory systems. We have nine more 5E lessons for the other body systems under the same standard.

What do my students need to know before this lesson?

A basic understanding of cells, tissues, and organs from earlier grade-level standards. If your kids can describe what a cell is and the difference between a cell and a tissue, they're ready.

How long does it take to teach?

Done with fidelity, about 10 class periods of 45 minutes each: one day for the Engage, two days for the Station Lab, two days for the Presentation and Interactive Notebook, three days for the Student Choice Project, and one to two days for review and the assessment. A compressed sample plan is included in the file if you need to move faster.

Do I need special supplies?

Just rulers for the Engage reaction-time experiment, plus a few low-cost items (blindfolds or cloth, toothpicks, small food samples) for the Explore It! five-senses stations. Most teachers already have what they need.

Does this work for digital classrooms?

Yes. Every component has a digital version. The Station Lab is fully digital-ready (Google Slides), the Presentation works in Google Slides, and the Student Choice Projects can be submitted as videos, slide decks, or written work.

Is this 5E lesson aligned to NGSS too?

It aligns with MS-LS1-3 (using arguments supported by evidence for how the body is a system of interacting subsystems composed of groups of cells) and MS-LS1-8 (gathering information to support an explanation of how sensory receptors respond to stimuli). Built TEKS-first, but the standards overlap.