Are the Texas ADI Books Just the NGSS Books Aligned to the TEKS?

A Texas science coordinator asked me this question while her district was reviewing materials:

“We’ve used the NGSS versions of ADI in the past. Are the Texas books just those same books with TEKS codes added? Or are they actually different?”

It is a fair question to ask, because a lot of “state editions” in education publishing are exactly that: the same lessons with a new standards table in the back.

The Texas ADI books are not that. They share the same instructional model and the same design commitments as the NGSS books, but they were built for the TEKS, and that difference shows up in what the investigations are about, where they sit in the year, and how they are aligned.

Here is why simply relabeling the NGSS books would not work.

Five Reasons a Relabel Would Fall Short

1. The TEKS are organized differently.

The revised science TEKS are three-dimensional, but they are not the NGSS with a Texas label. They organize science around scientific and engineering practices, recurring themes and concepts, and grade- or course-specific content expectations. The recurring themes are similar to the NGSS crosscutting concepts, but not identical. The practices strand also includes expectations that the NGSS practices do not name in the same way. Aligning to those expectations means writing to them, not mapping onto them after the fact.

2. Content sits at different grades.

This is the biggest practical difference. The TEKS set specific content for each grade, including each year of middle school, and for high school courses such as Biology, Chemistry, and Physics. The NGSS, by contrast, organize middle and high school standards into grade bands. An investigation that fits naturally in a particular NGSS grade may target content Texas students meet a year earlier, a year later, or in a different course. When the content moves, the phenomenon, the readings, and the investigation often have to move with it, or be replaced altogether.

3. Real alignment means all three dimensions at once.

A relabeled book usually matches topics: this lab is about density, so it gets the density code. But a unit is only well aligned to the TEKS if students are using the practices, the recurring themes, and the content expectations together to figure something out. That kind of alignment has to be designed in from the start, because it shapes what students are asked to do at every stage.

4. The phenomena come from Texas whenever possible.

Students care more about figuring something out when it happens in a place they know. So wherever we can, the phenomena in the Texas materials are drawn from Texas itself: Texas species, Texas ecosystems, Texas climate and weather, and Texas landforms. Students are more likely to investigate something happening along the Gulf Coast, in the Hill Country, or in the Chihuahuan Desert than something happening in California or New York. One of our STEM design challenges, for example, starts with the February 2021 cold snap in San Antonio. A relabeled NGSS book cannot do this, because its phenomena were chosen for classrooms everywhere, not for students who live here.

5. Texas classrooms have specific needs the materials should meet.

Texas teachers are responsible for the English Language Proficiency Standards (ELPS) alongside the TEKS, and many are supporting large numbers of emergent bilingual students. The Texas materials are written with that responsibility in mind, including guidance for supporting emergent bilingual students, students with disabilities, and students ready for enrichment inside the same investigation rather than in separate versions of it.

What Is the Same

It is worth being equally clear about what does not change. The Texas books use the same seven-stage ADI instructional model: Task, Ideas, Plan, Do, Share, Reflect, and Report. Students still begin with a phenomenon, create initial models, read to find useful ideas, plan and carry out investigations, argue from evidence, reflect, and write. The handouts are organized the same way, and the classroom routines are the same.

That consistency matters for districts. A teacher who moves from an NGSS state to Texas, or a coach who supports both, will recognize everything about how the lessons work. Only what students are figuring out, and when, has been rebuilt for Texas.

A Closer Look at How the Pieces Fit

The Texas materials also connect investigations to assessment in a deliberate way. A unit can begin with a Phenomenon-Driven Task used formatively to surface students’ initial ideas, continue through a set of Tier 1 lessons that include ADI investigations along with lessons focused on conceptual foundations, procedural fluency, and vocabulary, and then use a second Phenomenon-Driven Task educatively. The results of that second task inform Targeted Growth Stations, where students get the support or enrichment they need, before a final Phenomenon-Driven Task is used summatively at the end of the unit.

That structure is designed around what Texas teachers are asked to do: target specific TEKS, provide formative, educative, and summative assessment across the practices, themes, and content, and respond to what the data show about each student.

Putting It All Together

If you are reviewing materials, here are the questions I would ask of any “Texas edition,” including ours. Does each unit target the practices, recurring themes, and content TEKS at the same time? Are the investigations placed where the TEKS put the content, or where another set of standards put it? Are the phenomena things Texas students can see in their own state? Do the assessments make student thinking visible across all three? And is support for emergent bilingual students built into the learning experience, or added in a sidebar?

What I have come to believe is that alignment is not something you can add to a lesson at the end. It is a design decision that shapes the lesson from the first page.

How ADI Makes This Easier

Building three-dimensional units to the TEKS from scratch is a huge amount of work for any district. The Texas ADI books and materials do that work for you: investigations written for Texas grade placement, phenomena drawn from Texas whenever possible, assessments aligned to the TEKS, and built-in supports for every learner, all using the same instructional model teachers already know.

Reviewing materials for your district?

Browse sample Texas books and the TEKS catalog, and learn more about ADI in Texas, at argumentdriveninquiry.com.