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7th grade · Social Studies · Unit 13 of 13

Culture, Science & Technology

Arts, heritage and innovation

What your child practices

Diversity within unity in Texas celebrations and heritage, Texas artists and writers such as Scott Joplin, Elisabet Ney and J. Frank Dobie, and Texas leaders in science and technology (DeBakey, Cooley, Cunningham, Brooks, Dell, Hughes) and how innovation changed farming, energy, medicine and aerospace.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) teks student expectation: 7.18(A); 7.18(B); 7.18(D); 7.19(A); 7.19(B); 7.19(C); 7.19(D); 7.19(E) · cultural diversity and the arts in Texas, and the effects of science and technology on Texas

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Texas culture blends many heritages: Spanish place names and ranching, Mexican food (Tex-Mex), German festivals and more.
  2. Artists and writers like Scott Joplin and Elisabet Ney shaped Texas culture.
  3. Innovation changed life: barbed wire and windmills for ranching, heart surgery by DeBakey and Cooley, and aerospace.

Example: How did barbed wire and windmills change West Texas? Barbed wire made fences cheap on treeless plains. Windmills pumped water for cattle on dry land. Answer: They let ranchers fence land and water cattle on the dry plains

Culture, Science & Technology in Texas

In the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), this is unit 13 of 13 in 7th grade Social Studies, after Texas Constitution & Government.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Texas Education Agency (TEA)

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    Roy Bedichek was…

    • a railroad tycoon
    • a naturalist and writer about the Texas outdoors
    • a Confederate general
    • a surgeon

  2. Question 2

    Michael Dell is known for…

    • writing the Texas Constitution
    • inventing the cotton gin
    • finding oil at Spindletop
    • starting a major computer company from his college dorm room in Austin

  3. Question 3

    Scott Joplin, who grew up in Texarkana, is known as…

    • the "Lark of the Border"
    • "Cactus Jack"
    • the "King of Ragtime"
    • the "Father of Texas"

  4. Question 4

    Walter Prescott Webb was…

    • a painter
    • a Republic president
    • a historian who wrote about the Great Plains and the Texas Rangers
    • an astronaut

  5. Question 5

    Which celebration reflects the Mexican heritage of many Texans?

    • Lunar New Year
    • Oktoberfest
    • Diez y Seis de Septiembre
    • St. Patrick's Day

  6. Question 6

    How did aerospace research link Texas to the world?

    • it ended trade
    • NASA in Houston works with other nations on the International Space Station
    • Texas built rockets only for itself
    • it closed Houston's port

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