Welcome to 8th Grade Science! The expectations for 8th grade are high!
I expect you to work hard and learn at your ability level. You will be challenged and expected to do your very best, every day. You will definitely learn a lot this year if you work, but working is not always fun. Understand that every activity you do in life will be a mix of excitement and boredom. Your 8th grade classes are no different.
You will get out of your classes only what you put into it!
Make Good Choices and Good Things Will Happen!
“Every generation has the opportunity to change the world”
-Barack Obama
-Barack Obama
About your science class:
By the end of 8th grade, students will be able to:
Understand how the ocean affects weather and climate.
Use data to understand how human activity affects global temperatures.
Understand how genes and environments affect the growth of living things (organisms).
Understand how atoms combine in many ways to make the substances that make up all living and nonliving things.
Massachusetts Frameworks:
MA DESE Family Guides:
TODAY IN SCIENCE
Course Curriculum frameworks (ma ngss)
Cause and Effect
Grade 8 students use more robust abstract thinking skills to explain causes of complex phenomena and
systems. Many causes are not immediately or physically visible to students. An understanding of cause
and effect of key natural phenomena and designed processes allows students to explain patterns and
make predictions about future events. In grade 8 these include, for example, causes of seasons and
tides; causes of plate tectonics and weather or climate; the role of genetics in reproduction, heredity,
and artificial selection; and how atoms and molecules interact to explain the substances that make up
the world and how materials change. Being able to analyze phenomena for evidence of causes and
processes that often cannot be seen, and being able to conceptualize and describe those, is a significant
outcome for grade 8 students.
Earth and Space Sciences
ESS1. Earth’s Place in the Universe
8.MS-ESS1-1b. Develop and use a model of the Earth-Sun system to explain the cyclical pattern of
seasons, which includes Earth’s tilt and differential intensity of sunlight on different areas of Earth
across the year.
8.MS-ESS1-2. Explain the role of gravity in ocean tides, the orbital motions of planets, their moons, and
asteroids in the solar system.
8.MS-ESS2-1. Use a model to illustrate that energy from Earth’s interior drives convection that cycles
Earth’s crust, leading to melting, crystallization, weathering, and deformation of large rock formations,
including generation of ocean sea floor at ridges, submergence of ocean sea floor at trenches, mountain
building, and active volcanic chains.
8.MS-ESS2-5. Interpret basic weather data to identify patterns in air mass interactions and the
relationship of those patterns to local weather.
8.MS-ESS2-6. Describe how interactions involving the ocean affect weather and climate on a regional
scale, including the influence of the ocean temperature as mediated by energy input from the Sun and
energy loss due to evaporation or redistribution via ocean currents.
ESS3. Earth and Human Activity
8.MS-ESS3-1. Analyze and interpret data to explain that the Earth’s mineral and fossil fuel resources are
unevenly distributed as a result of geologic processes.
8.MS-ESS3-5. Examine and interpret data to describe the role that human activities have played in
causing the rise in global temperatures over the past century.
Life Science
LS1. From Molecules to Organisms: Structures and Processes
8.MS-LS1-5. Construct an argument based on evidence for how environmental and genetic factors
influence the growth of organisms.
8.MS-LS1-7. Use informational text to describe that food molecules, including carbohydrates, proteins,
and fats, are broken down and rearranged through chemical reactions forming new molecules that
support cell growth and/or release of energy.
LS3. Heredity: Inheritance and Variation of Traits
8.MS-LS3-1. Develop and use a model to describe that structural changes to genes (mutations) may or
may not result in changes to proteins, and if there are changes to proteins there may be harmful,
beneficial, or neutral changes to traits.
8.MS-LS3-2. Construct an argument based on evidence for how asexual reproduction results in offspring
with identical genetic information and sexual reproduction results in offspring with genetic variation.
Compare and contrast advantages and disadvantages of asexual and sexual reproduction.
8.MS-LS3-3(MA). Communicate through writing and in diagrams that chromosomes contain many
distinct genes and that each gene holds the instructions for the production of specific proteins, which in
turn affects the traits of an individual.
8.MS-LS3-4(MA). Develop and use a model to show that sexually reproducing organisms have two of
each chromosome in their cell nuclei, and hence two variants (alleles) of each gene that can be the same
or different from each other, with one random assortment of each chromosome passed down to
offspring from both parents.
LS4. Biological Evolution: Unity and Diversity
8.MS-LS4-4. Use a model to describe the process of natural selection, in which genetic variations of
some traits in a population increase some individuals’ likelihood of surviving and reproducing in a
changing environment. Provide evidence that natural selection occurs over many generations.
8.MS-LS4-5. Synthesize and communicate information about artificial selection, or the ways in which
humans have changed the inheritance of desired traits in organisms.
Physical Science
8.MS-PS1-1. Develop a model to describe that (a) atoms combine in a multitude of ways to produce
pure substances which make up all of the living and nonliving things that we encounter, (b) atoms form
molecules and compounds that range in size from two to thousands of atoms, and (c) mixtures are
composed of different proportions of pure substances.
8.MS-PS1-2. Analyze and interpret data on the properties of substances before and after the substances
interact to determine if a chemical reaction has occurred.
8.MS-PS1-4. Develop a model that describes and predicts changes in particle motion, relative spatial
arrangement, temperature, and state of a pure substance when thermal energy is added or removed.
8.MS-PS1-5. Use a model to explain that atoms are rearranged during a chemical reaction to form new
substances with new properties. Explain that the atoms present in the reactants are all present in the
products and thus the total number of atoms is conserved.
PS2. Motion and Stability: Forces and Interactions
8.MS-PS2-1. Develop a model that demonstrates Newton’s third law involving the motion of two
colliding objects.
8.MS-PS2-2. Provide evidence that the change in an object’s speed depends on the sum of the forces on
the object (the net force) and the mass of the object.