5th grade Science
15 units matched to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS).
Focus areas
- Properties of matter, mixtures and solutions
- Forces, energy changes, circuits and light
- Day and night, the water cycle, rocks and landforms
- Ecosystems, adaptations and animal behavior
Units
Unit 1
Solutions & Mixtures
Solutions versus mechanical mixtures, solutes and solvents, what affects dissolving, and ways to separate mixtures (filtering, evaporation, magnets, chromatography).
TEKS student expectation: 5.6(B); 5.6(C) · mixtures that keep their properties, and solutions that conserve matter
Unit 2
Measuring Matter
Measuring mass (grams, kilograms) and volume (milliliters, liters), comparing density, why gases compress and solids do not, and how the particle model explains it.
TEKS student expectation: 5.6(A); 5.6(D) · comparing matter by mass, volume and density, and matter made of particles
Unit 3
Solid, Liquid, Gas
Matter as anything with mass and volume, how particles are arranged in solids, liquids and gases, and why materials are chosen for their properties.
TEKS student expectation: 5.6(A) · physical states and measurable properties of matter
Unit 4
Forces, Friction and Machines
Forces as pushes, pulls and twists, how friction affects motion, and how friction makes simple machines less efficient.
TEKS student expectation: 5.7(A); 5.7(B) · how forces, including friction, change motion, and testing their effects
Unit 5
Forms of Energy
Kinetic and potential energy, how energy changes from one form to another, and why some energy always escapes as heat, light or sound.
TEKS student expectation: 5.8(A) · energy transformations in systems such as a flashlight
Unit 6
Light
Natural and artificial light, things that make light and things that reflect it, shadows, transparent, translucent and opaque materials, mirrors, refraction, and how light technology affects people and wildlife.
TEKS student expectation: 5.8(C) · light traveling in straight lines and being reflected, refracted or absorbed
Unit 7
Weather and the Water Cycle
How the Sun, air, water and land interact to cause daily weather, the water cycle, tools for measuring weather, and why long-term forecasting is hard.
TEKS student expectation: 5.10(A) · the Sun and ocean driving the water cycle and weather
Unit 8
The Rock Cycle
How igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks form and change into one another, weathering and erosion, and a short reading passage.
TEKS student expectation: 5.10(B) · how sedimentary rock forms
Unit 9
Habitats & Communities
Habitats as places that meet the needs of living things, communities of interacting species, why habitats have limits, how species depend on each other, and how human actions can help or harm.
TEKS student expectation: 5.12(A); 5.12(B); 5.12(C) · how organisms interact with living and nonliving parts of a healthy ecosystem, and human effects
Unit 10
Adaptations & Habitats
Practices habitats, body and behavior adaptations, camouflage, migration and hibernation, and how plants and animals rely on each other (pollination, seed dispersal, soil nutrients).
TEKS student expectation: 5.13(A) · structures and functions that help different species survive in one environment
Unit 11
Circuits at Work
Practices the parts a working electrical circuit needs (an energy source, wires, a load and a closed path), open and closed circuits, switches, conductors and insulators, and how electrical energy is changed into motion, light, sound or thermal energy.
TEKS student expectation: 5.8(B) · electrical energy in complete circuits changing into motion, light, sound or thermal energy, and what a circuit needs to work
Unit 12
Protecting Resources
Practices designing and explaining solutions such as conservation, recycling and proper disposal that reduce the environmental impact of using natural resources like water, soil, energy and materials.
TEKS student expectation: 5.11 · conservation, recycling and proper disposal to reduce the impact of using natural resources
Unit 13
Spinning Earth, Moving Shadows
Practices that Earth rotates on its axis about once every 24 hours, which causes day and night and makes the Sun appear to move across the sky, so shadows change length and direction during the day.
TEKS student expectation: 5.9 · Earth's rotation, day and night, the Sun's apparent motion and changing shadows
Unit 14
Deltas, Canyons & Dunes
Practices how changes to Earth's surface by wind, water and ice form landforms such as deltas, canyons and sand dunes, with Texas examples like Palo Duro Canyon, Santa Elena Canyon in Big Bend, the Monahans Sandhills and the Rio Grande delta.
TEKS student expectation: 5.10(C) · how wind, water and ice form landforms such as deltas, canyons and sand dunes
Unit 15
Born Knowing or Learned?
Practices telling instinctive behaviors (sea turtle hatchlings heading for the sea, spiders spinning webs) from learned behaviors (orcas hunting in packs, a dog learning a trick), and how different species' structures and behaviors help them survive in the same environment.
TEKS student expectation: 5.13(A); 5.13(B) · structures that help species survive, and instinctive and learned behaviors
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