The elementary and middle school grades focus on systems, featuring inquiry-based learning activities and laboratory experiments. The TEKS course replaces the physical science course under the Essential Elements. At the secondary level, the lab activities will especially help teachers address the 40 percent lab time requirement in the new IPC course. But at all levels, the activities are designed to relate science principles to the real world. One elementary activity, for example, demonstrates to students the abstract concept of aquifer activity using common household products.
Students move water using containers, pipes and tubes.
By measuring the results of the movement in various parameters, such as time, volume and distance, students learn the characteristics of water and can begin to discover how water movement could affect their local environment. Students also learn how to communicate their data using charts and graphs. By the time students get to high school, the concepts become more complex, but the experiments remain relatively simple. First, the film cannister is filled with water. An antacid tablet is put inside the cannister, and the lid is quickly secured.