8th Grade

Students inquire about states, properties, and transformations of matter

Students explain forces, motions, and their interactions.

Students investigate energy and how it is transferred and transformed within and between systems.

Students analyze the interconnected systems that include the planet Earth, our Solar System, our Galaxy, and the Universe.

Students explain planet Earth as a complex and dynamic system of rock, water, air, and living things

Students assess the interrelated cycles and forces that shape Earth’s surface, including human interaction with Earth.

Students examine organisms’ structures and functions for life processes, including growth and reproduction.

Students inquire how organisms and populations of organisms obtain resources from their environment.

Students explore how biological evolution explains unity and diversity of species.

Identify that patterns in the characteristics of atoms enable prediction of materials’ properties

Define the concept of conservation of mass

Differentiate acids and bases

Recognize that atomic (nuclear) energy is derived from changes within atoms

Explain how the same unbalanced force will change the motion of an object with more mass more slowly than that of an object with less mass

Explain devices showing energy transfer and transformations

Explain that to see an object, light emitted or reflected by that object must enter the eye

Explain that energy from a variety of sources can be transformed into electrical energy and then to almost any other form of energy

Explain how energy can be transferred from one place to another through waves (e.g., vibrations in materials such as sound and earthquake waves)

Describe the large-scale structure of the Universe and its major components

Describe the role of gravity in the history of matter in the Universe

Explain how to determine the age of Earth’s changing surface and how to estimate the age of fossils found in the rocks

Explain the transformations of matter taking place within Earth

Analyze how Earth has been shaped by living organisms and by many natural catastrophes and their impacts, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, glaciers, floods, storms, tsunami, and asteroid collisions

Explain how the rock cycle forms igneous rock from magma or lava, sedimentary rock from compaction of eroded particles, and metamorphic rock by heating and pressure

Analyze how water’s unique physical and chemical properties influence its global impacts, such as how it dissolves minerals and gases and carries them to the oceans through the water cycle

Highlight the current and potential impacts of rising sea levels around the globe

Assess changes in, and pollution of, the ocean’s waters

Assess costs and benefits of existing and proposed natural resource conservation programs

Explain characteristics being passed from parents to offspring

Analyze and draw conclusions on how passing traits are essential to the continuation of the species (meiosis, mitosis)

Explain systems that scientists use to classify organisms

Describe cellular processes such as respiration, ingestion, digestion, excretion, and secretion

Evaluate how lifestyle choices and living environments affect structures and life processes at many levels of the human body and can harm the whole body

Summarize relationships among organisms and their environments

Analyze the range of causes and effects underlying ecosystems’ continuous changes

Analyze human impacts on ecosystems’ stability, and evaluate possible strategies to mitigate these impacts

Explain the concept of adaptation

Define extinction

Discuss the theory of biological evolution