Hero | Texas Hub Module

Texas Science Teacher Resource Hub

Free scope and sequences, TEKS breakdowns, phenomenon ideas, and engagement activities for the 2024 Texas science standards.

I'm Chris Kesler, a former award-winning Texas middle school science teacher. This is the site I wish I'd had in the classroom. One hub with TEKS breakdowns, scope and sequences, phenomenon starters, engagement ideas, and resources, all aligned to the standards you actually teach.

Get Free Pacing Guide

🚀 Jump to Your Grade

Pick your grade level and go straight to your TEKS standards, aligned resources, and teaching tools.

All standards updated for the 2024 TEKS revision

TEKS Details | Texas Hub Module

7th Grade TEKS Standards

Click any standard to see what it means, how to teach it, where students get stuck, and aligned resources.

TEKS S.7.10A • Earth's History

Evidence of Changes Over Time

The Standard

"Describe the evidence that supports that Earth has changed over time, including fossil evidence, plate tectonics, and superposition."

💡 What This Standard Actually Means

The Key Verb

"Describe". Students are describing the evidence that supports that Earth has changed over time. The standard names three specific kinds of evidence to focus on: fossil evidence, plate tectonics, and superposition. This is a big shift from the old version, which focused on ice cores, tree rings, and radiometric dating. The new TEKS leans on geological and biological evidence preserved in the rock record. Instruction can take many forms, such as fossil-layer investigations, sedimentary rock layer analysis, plate boundary mapping, and superposition stacking activities with paper or playdough.

Earth is roughly 4.6 billion years old. That number is hard to wrap your head around, but the standard is about how scientists know the planet has changed during all that time. The 2024 TEKS lists three specific lines of evidence kids need to be able to describe.

Fossil evidence shows what kinds of organisms lived in different places at different times. When scientists find tropical plant fossils in Antarctica or marine fossils on top of a mountain, that's evidence the climate, location, or elevation has changed dramatically. Fossils of similar animals show up on continents that are now thousands of miles apart, suggesting those continents used to be connected. The fossil record tells the story of life evolving over hundreds of millions of years and the planet shifting around it.

Plate tectonics is the evidence that Earth's outer shell is broken into large pieces (plates) that slowly move. Coastlines on different continents fit together like puzzle pieces, especially the bulge of South America and the curve of Africa. Identical rock formations and fossils appear on continents that are now separated by oceans. Earthquake and volcano patterns line up along plate boundaries. All of that points to continents that have moved, oceans that have opened and closed, and mountain ranges that have risen as plates collided.

Superposition is the idea that in undisturbed sedimentary rock layers, older layers sit on the bottom and younger layers stack on top. By reading down through the layers, scientists can build a timeline of when different events happened, when certain organisms lived, when sea levels changed, and when major events like volcanic eruptions or asteroid impacts happened. Together, these three kinds of evidence give students a clear picture: Earth's surface has been changing the whole time, and the rocks themselves hold the record.

💬 From Chris's Classroom

The move that worked for me on this one was putting each type of evidence on its own station and having kids rotate through like detectives. At one station I'd have a picture of a rock face with fossil layers drawn in. At another, an ice core photo with layers they could count. At tree rings I'd put an actual tree cookie from a fallen tree in my yard. They'd record "what this tells us" at each spot. By the end, they weren't memorizing a list. They were treating Earth like a case file. That framing stuck way longer than any timeline I ever made them copy down.

⚠️ Misconceptions Your Students May Have

These are some of the most common misconceptions. Knowing what to look for can help you get ahead of them.

"Fossils can form in any kind of rock"

✓

Fossils are found primarily in sedimentary rock. Sedimentary rock forms in slow, gentle layers, which is the exact environment that preserves plant and animal remains. Igneous rock forms from extreme heat, and metamorphic rock forms under intense heat and pressure. Both conditions destroy the delicate structures that become fossils. When students look at a fossil diagram, they should expect those layers to be sedimentary.

"Dinosaur bones are dated using carbon-14"

✓

Carbon-14 is useful for dating organic material up to around 50,000 years old. Dinosaurs went extinct about 66 million years ago, so carbon-14 is not the right tool. Scientists date dinosaur-era rocks using longer-lived isotopes like uranium-238 or potassium-40, usually in the volcanic ash layers above and below the fossil. Different isotopes cover different time ranges.

"Ice cores go back millions of years"

✓

The oldest continuous ice cores drilled so far reach back roughly 800,000 years. That's an incredible record, but it's not millions. For climate information older than that, scientists turn to other proxies, like ocean sediment cores and the chemistry of ancient rocks. Ice cores are a powerful tool for a specific window of Earth's recent past.

"If layers are tilted or broken, scientists can't figure out the order"

✓

Rock layers get folded, tilted, and faulted by tectonic activity all the time. Geologists have tools for this. They look at features like cross-cutting relationships (a fault is younger than the rocks it cuts through) and the original horizontal orientation of sediment. The sequence still reads if you know what to look for. Students shouldn't assume broken layers mean broken information.

📓 Teaching Resources for 7.10A

These resources are aligned to this standard.

Complete 5E Lesson

Evidence of Changes Over Time Complete Science Lesson

The full unit for 7.10A: differentiated station labs, editable presentations, interactive notebooks (English + Spanish), student-choice projects, and assessments. Built on the 5E model.

⏱ Best for: Full unit coverage • Multiple class periods

Station Lab

Evidence of Changes Over Time Station Lab

9-station hands-on lab covering fossils, ice cores, tree rings, and radiometric dating with input stations (Explore It!, Watch It!, Read It!, Research It!) and output stations (Organize It!, Illustrate It!, Write It!, Assess It!). Print and digital. English and Spanish.

🔬 Best for: Core instruction • 1-2 class periods

Student Choice Projects

Evidence of Changes Over Time Student Choice Projects

Choice board with nine project options plus a "design your own" pathway. Students demonstrate their understanding of fossil layers, ice cores, tree rings, and radiometric dating through writing, building, illustrating, presenting, or digital formats.

🎓 Best for: Project-based assessment • 2-3 class periods

🌎 Phenomenon Ideas for 7.10A

Use these real-world phenomena to anchor your lesson. Show students the phenomenon first, let them wonder, then build toward Evidence of Changes Over Time as the explanation.

🔎

Phenomenon 1

Whale Fossils in the Middle of the Desert

In Egypt's Wadi Al-Hitan, hundreds of whale fossils sit in the open desert, hundreds of miles from the nearest ocean. These are full skeletons, some more than 40 feet long, preserved in sedimentary rock. The area is now one of the driest places on Earth. Whales do not live in deserts. So how did they get there?

💬 Discussion Prompt

"If whales can only live in the ocean, and these whale fossils are buried in desert rock layers, what must have been different about this place millions of years ago?"

🔎

Phenomenon 2

The Tree That Remembers a Drought

A cross-section of a bristlecone pine or an ancient Texas post oak shows rings that vary in width from year to year. Narrow, tight rings signal tough years with little rain. Wider rings show good growing years. Some bristlecone pines alive today are more than 4,000 years old, which means their rings hold a year-by-year record of local climate stretching back to before the Roman Empire.

💬 Discussion Prompt

"A tree that lived for 4,000 years has a ring for each year. If we see a stretch of 50 very narrow rings in a row, what does that tell us about the climate in that part of history?"

🔎

Phenomenon 3

Air Bubbles Trapped in Antarctic Ice

Scientists drill ice cores in Antarctica that reach over a mile deep. Inside the ice are tiny bubbles of air, trapped when each layer of snow first compressed into ice. Some of those bubbles hold air that was last breathed by a mammoth. By measuring the gases in those bubbles, scientists can reconstruct what Earth's atmosphere looked like going back roughly 800,000 years.

💬 Discussion Prompt

"If deeper ice is older ice, and each layer traps a bubble of that year's air, how could this record help scientists figure out how Earth's atmosphere has changed over time?"

💡 Free Engagement Ideas for 7.10A

Edible Rock Layers

Build sedimentary layers in clear plastic cups using different colored snack foods (crushed graham crackers, vanilla pudding, chocolate chips, gummy worms for fossils). Students layer from bottom to top, then trade cups with another group. The receiving group "excavates" and reads the layers using the law of superposition.

Materials: Clear plastic cups, pudding, graham crackers, gummy worms, spoons

Paper Plate Tree Rings

Give each student a paper plate and have them draw rings representing a 15-year period. Assign scenarios (a drought year, a flood year, a forest fire, a normal year) and have students decide what the rings would look like. They swap plates and try to read another student's "tree history" from the ring pattern alone.

Materials: Paper plates, colored markers, scenario cards

M&M Half-Life Lab

Fill a cup with 100 M&Ms, M-side up, to represent radioactive atoms. Shake and pour out onto a paper towel. Any M&M that lands M-side down has "decayed." Count and record the remaining ones. Repeat for 6 to 8 rounds. Graph the data. Students will see the classic half-life curve emerge from randomness.

Materials: M&Ms or pennies, plastic cups, paper towels, graph paper

Ice Core Layer Cake

Pre-freeze layers of colored water in a clear cup (blue, then green, then clear, with a "dust layer" of cinnamon between layers). Pull out the frozen column and let students examine the layers. Each color represents a different year or climate condition. Students match colors to a "legend" to reconstruct the climate story.

Materials: Clear cups, food coloring, water, cinnamon, freezer

Pacing Guides | Texas Hub Module

Free Planning Tools

Year-at-a-Glance Pacing Guides

Practical, week-by-week scope and sequences for grades 4-8. These tell you what to teach and when to teach it. Updated for the 2024 TEKS.

4^th

Grade Science

PDF

Download Free

5^th

Grade Science

PDF

Download Free

6^th

Grade Science

PDF

Download Free

7^th

Grade Science

PDF

Download Free

8^th

Grade Science

PDF

Download Free

Free download. No email required. Updated for the 2024 TEKS with linked activities for every unit.

Trusted Across Texas | Texas Hub Module

Texas Teacher Community

Trusted Across Texas

From the Rio Grande Valley to the Panhandle, Texas science teachers are using Kesler Science to save time and engage students.

Texas Schools and Districts
Love Kesler Science

What Teachers Are Saying

Sandra G.

via email

"Complete, concise, time saving treasure chest of ready-made lessons that fit my standards. Cuts my prep time, increases student engagement, and makes it easier to have a student-led classroom."

Stacy D.

via email

"It is easy to access, updated frequently, well-supported when I have questions, and everything I need is provided. No surprises."

Debra A.

via email

"Kesler has helped me differentiate instruction for students, move toward more inquiry-based labs, and kept me from losing my mind!"

Admin Section | Texas Hub Module

For Administrators

Give Your Science Teachers Everything They Need

School and district licenses give your teachers access to every resource they need, including station labs, inquiry labs, anchoring phenomena, presentations, escape rooms, and much more. One purchase covers the grade levels you need.

✓ PO-friendly. We accept purchase orders
✓ Volume discounts for 10+ teachers
✓ Free PD session for departments of 5+
✓ Aligned to the 2024 TEKS standards

Request a Quote Schedule a Demo

See It in Action

Book a walkthrough and we'll show you how Kesler Science fits your campus.

Book Demo Call

No pressure, no hard sell

Rosemarie C.

via email

"My assistant principal stopped in my room and immediately noticed how the students were engrossed in their centers and how they moved seamlessly from center to center. Also the built-in modifications really impressed!"

Cassandra G.

via email

"It provides differentiated instruction for all types of learners, allowing them to become more engaged."

Margaret I.

via email

"I love it all!! I have become a facilitator in my class and I love the excitement it brings to my class. The kids love all that we do with the Kesler products."

Texas Science Teacher Resource Hub

🚀 Jump to Your Grade

7th Grade TEKS Standards

Evidence of Changes Over Time

💡 What This Standard Actually Means

⚠️ Misconceptions Your Students May Have

📓 Teaching Resources for 7.10A

🌎 Phenomenon Ideas for 7.10A

Whale Fossils in the Middle of the Desert

The Tree That Remembers a Drought

Air Bubbles Trapped in Antarctic Ice

💡 Free Engagement Ideas for 7.10A

Edible Rock Layers

Paper Plate Tree Rings

M&M Half-Life Lab

Ice Core Layer Cake

Year-at-a-Glance Pacing Guides

Trusted Across Texas

Texas Schools and DistrictsLove Kesler Science

What Teachers Are Saying

Give Your Science Teachers Everything They Need

See It in Action

Texas Schools and Districts
Love Kesler Science