| (a) Implementation. The provisions of this section
shall be implemented by school districts beginning with the 2025-2026
school year.
(b) General requirements. This course is recommended
for students in Grades 10-12. Prerequisites: one credit of Algebra
I and one credit of Chemistry, Physics, or Integrated Physics and
Chemistry. Students must meet the 40% laboratory and fieldwork requirement.
This course satisfies a high school science graduation requirement.
Students shall be awarded one credit for successful completion of
this course.
(c) Introduction.
(1) Career and technical education instruction provides
content aligned with challenging academic standards and relevant technical
knowledge and skills for students to further their education and succeed
in current or emerging professions.
(2) The Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics
Career Cluster focuses on planning, managing, and providing scientific
research and professional and technical services, including laboratory
and testing services, and research and development services.
(3) In Applied Physics and Engineering, students conduct
laboratory and field investigations, use scientific and engineering
practices during investigations, and make informed decisions using
critical thinking and scientific problem solving. Various systems
are described in terms of space, time, energy, and matter. Students
study topics, including laws of motion, conservation of energy, momentum,
electricity, magnetism, thermodynamics, and characteristics and behavior
of waves. Students apply physics concepts and perform laboratory experimentations
for at least 40% of instructional time using safe practices.
(4) Nature of science. Science, as defined by the National
Academy of Sciences, is the "use of evidence to construct testable
explanations and predictions of natural phenomena, as well as the
knowledge generated through this process." This vast body of
changing and increasing knowledge is described by physical, mathematical,
and conceptual models. Students should know that some questions are
outside the realm of science because they deal with phenomena that
are not scientifically testable.
(5) Scientific hypotheses and theories. Students are
expected to know that:
(A) hypotheses are tentative and testable statements
that must be capable of being supported or not supported by observational
evidence. Hypotheses of durable explanatory power that have been tested
over a wide variety of conditions are incorporated into theories;
and
(B) scientific theories are based on natural and physical
phenomena and are capable of being tested by multiple independent
researchers. Unlike hypotheses, scientific theories are well established
and highly reliable explanations, but they may be subject to change
as new areas of science and new technologies are developed.
(6) Scientific inquiry. Scientific inquiry is the planned
and deliberate investigation of the natural world using scientific
and engineering practices. Scientific methods of investigation are
descriptive, comparative, or experimental. The method chosen should
be appropriate to the question being asked. Student learning for different
types of investigations include descriptive investigations, which
involve collecting data and recording observations without making
comparisons; comparative investigations, which involve collecting
data with variables that are manipulated to compare results; and experimental
investigations, which involve processes similar to comparative investigations
but in which a control is identified.
(A) Scientific practices. Students should be able to
ask questions, plan and conduct investigations to answer questions,
and explain phenomena using appropriate tools and models.
(B) Engineering practices. Students should be able
to identify problems and design solutions using appropriate tools
and models.
(7) Science and social ethics. Scientific decision
making is a way of answering questions about the natural world involving
its own set of ethical standards about how the process of science
should be carried out. Students should be able to distinguish between
scientific decision-making methods (scientific methods) and ethical
and social decisions that involve science (the application of scientific
information).
(8) Science consists of recurring themes and making
connections between overarching concepts. Recurring themes include
systems, models, and patterns. All systems have basic properties that
can be described in space, time, energy, and matter. Change and constancy
occur in systems as patterns and can be observed, measured, and modeled.
These patterns help to make predictions that can be scientifically
tested, while models allow for boundary specification and provide
tools for understanding the ideas presented. Students should analyze
a system in terms of its components and how these components relate
to each other, to the whole, and to the external environment.
(9) Students are encouraged to participate in extended
learning experiences such as career and technical student organizations,
other leadership or extracurricular organizations, or practical, hands-on
activities or experiences through which a learner interacts with industry
professionals in a workplace, which may be an in-person, virtual,
or simulated setting. Learners prepare for employment or advancement
along a career pathway by completing purposeful tasks that develop
academic, technical, and employability skills.
(10) Statements that contain the word "including"
reference content that must be mastered, while those containing the
phrase "such as" are intended as possible illustrative examples.
(d) Knowledge and skills.
(1) The student demonstrates professional standards/employability
skills as required by business and industry. The student is expected
to:
(A) describe and demonstrate how to dress appropriately,
speak politely, and conduct oneself in a manner appropriate for the
profession;
(B) describe and demonstrate how to cooperate, contribute,
and collaborate as a member of a group in an effort to achieve a positive
collective outcome;
(C) present written and oral communication in a clear,
concise, and effective manner;
(D) demonstrate time-management skills in prioritizing
tasks, following schedules, and performing goal-relevant activities
in a way that produces efficient results; and
(E) demonstrate punctuality, dependability, reliability,
and responsibility in performing assigned tasks as directed.
(2) Scientific and engineering practices. The student,
for at least 40% of instructional time, asks questions, identifies
problems, and plans and safely conducts classroom, laboratory, and
field investigations to answer questions, explain phenomena, or design
solutions using appropriate tools and models. The student is expected
to:
(A) ask questions and define problems based on observations
or information from text, phenomena, models, or investigations;
(B) apply scientific practices to plan and conduct
descriptive, comparative, and experimental investigations and use
engineering practices to design solutions to problems;
(C) use appropriate safety equipment and practices
during laboratory, classroom, and field investigations as outlined
in Texas Education Agency-approved safety standards;
(D) use appropriate tools such as ammeters, balances,
ballistic carts or equivalent, batteries, calipers, Celsius thermometers,
consumable chemicals, collision apparatus, computers and modeling
software, constant velocity cars, data acquisition probes and software,
discharge tubes with power supply (H, He, Ne, Ar), dynamics and force
demonstration equipment, electroscopes, electrostatic generators,
electrostatic kits, friction blocks, graphing technology, hand-held
visual spectroscopes, hot plates, iron filings, laser pointers, light
bulbs, macrometers, magnets, magnetic compasses, mass sets, metric
rulers, meter sticks, models and diagrams, motion detectors, multimeters,
optics bench, optics kit, optic lenses, pendulums, photogates, plane
mirrors, polarized film, prisms, protractors, resistors, ripple tank
with wave generators, rope or string, scientific calculators, simple
machines, slinky springs, springs, spring scales, standard laboratory
glassware, stopwatches, switches, tuning forks, timing devices, trajectory
apparatus, voltmeters, wave motion ropes, wires, or other equipment
and materials that will produce the same results;
(E) collect quantitative data using the International
System of Units (SI) and qualitative data as evidence;
(F) organize quantitative and qualitative data using
notebooks or engineering journals, bar charts, line graphs, scatter
plots, data tables, equations, conceptual mathematical relationships,
labeled drawings and diagrams, or graphic organizers such as Venn
diagrams;
(G) develop and use models to represent phenomena,
systems, processes, or solutions to engineering problems; and
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