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7th grade · Social Studies · Unit 11 of 13

Texas Places & People

Regions, environment and population

What your child practices

The four regions and key places of Texas, how geography shaped events (the 1900 Galveston Hurricane, the Dust Bowl, limited water, wind energy), how Texans changed the environment, immigrant groups and where they settled, and population growth, age distribution and its effects.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) teks student expectation: 7.8(A); 7.8(B); 7.8(C); 7.9(A); 7.9(B); 7.10(A); 7.10(B); 7.10(C); 7.10(D); 7.21(A); 7.21(B) · regions and places of Texas, human-environment interaction, and population and migration

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Texas has four regions: Coastal Plains, North Central Plains, Great Plains and Mountains and Basins. The Balcones Escarpment edges the Coastal Plains.
  2. Geography shaped events: the 1900 Galveston Hurricane helped Houston, inland, become the main port.
  3. The Dust Bowl came from drought, wind and plowing that removed grass holding the soil.

Example: What caused the Dust Bowl of the 1930s? Grass roots had held the soil. Plowing removed the grass, then drought and wind blew the soil away. Answer: drought, high winds and plowing that removed the grass

Texas Places & People in Texas

In the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), this is unit 11 of 13 in 7th grade Social Studies, after Reform & Civil Rights and before 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

    Limited water resources in Texas have led to…

    • the end of cities
    • reservoirs, pipelines and water planning
    • no farming anywhere
    • unlimited water use

  2. Question 2

    How did the 1900 hurricane change Texas development?

    • nothing changed
    • Houston, inland and protected, grew into the main port
    • ports were banned
    • Galveston became the largest city in Texas

  3. Question 3

    Texas leads the nation in producing electricity from…

    • geothermal volcanoes
    • coal mined in the Gulf
    • wind
    • tides

  4. Question 4

    Irrigation from the Ogallala Aquifer allowed…

    • rice farming in the desert
    • the aquifer to grow larger
    • oil drilling only
    • large-scale farming on the High Plains, but the aquifer is being drawn down

  5. Question 5

    A positive consequence of building reservoirs is…

    • water supply, flood control and electricity
    • loss of wildlife habitat
    • displacing towns
    • flooding valleys

  6. Question 6

    A thematic map of rainfall in Texas would show…

    • more rain in the west
    • no rain anywhere
    • more rain in the east and less in the west
    • equal rain everywhere

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