Geography-8th Grade

Understand world geography and the effects of geography on society, with an emphasis on the United States. Understand world geography and the effects of geography and religion on society with an emphasis on the United States.

Locate, describe and explain places, regions and features on the Earth. Locate, describe and explain places, regions and features of God’s creation. 

Analyze and explain characteristics and interactions of the Earth’s physical systems. Analyze and explain the moral implications of our interactions with the Earth’s physical systems.

Understand relationships between geographic factors and society. Understand relationships between geographic factors, society and the Church.

Understand the historical significance of geography. Understand the historical significance of geography and the Church.

Translate a map into sketch form to illustrate relative location of, size of, and distances between geographic features (e.g., cities, mountains, rivers).

Demonstrate understanding of how to display spatial information by constructing maps, graphs, diagrams, and charts to display spatial information (e.g., choropleth maps, climographs, population pyramids).

Describe the location of places using the global system of time zones.

Demonstrate understanding of world time zones by determining the date and time in selected cities around the world.

Trace the origins of the Church.

Analyze climographs for selected places and suggest reasons for similarities and differences in climates.

Hypothesize about the future effects of the use of technology on Earth’s physical system (e.g., climate, soil, air, water).

Propose ways humankind can preserve God’s gift of the environment. 

Analyze the causes and effects of changes over time in physical landscapes (e.g., forest cover, water distribution, temperature fluctuations) as show on maps, graphs, and satellite produced images.

Predict the potential outcomes of the continued movement of Earth’s tectonic plates (e.g., continental drift, earthquakes, volcanic activity).

Explain the patterns of natural resource distribution (e.g., petroleum, timber) in various regions of the United States and the world.

Identify ways that humankind can share resources with emphasis on their responsibility as Catholics.

Identify reasons related to the natural environment that influence the location of certain human activities (e.g., corn production in Illinois, rice in Southeast Asia). 

Explain how human induced alterations of the environment have resulted in human migration (e.g., “Okies” from the Dust Bowl to California, the expanding Sahara).

Analyze rapidly growing urban centers to determine the impact of urban sprawl on the physical and human environment.

Rank natural hazards based on the degree of impact on people and the physical environment (e.g., loss of life, destruction of property, economic impact, alteration of ecosystems). 

Understand the moral and religious obligation to help those affected by natural disasters. List different ways to help.

Describe how legacies of the past have affected past and present human characteristics of places (e.g., wealth and poverty, exploitation, colonialism and independence).

Explain, in terms of “push-pull” factors, the major population movements that have occurred in the past and may occur among places and regions. What was the effect of religious oppression and religious tolerance?

Analyze maps of human settlement and routes traveled in the past to determine the relationship between where people lived and their movements.