Download ASBA Yearlongplan Science 8

Year Long Plan
Grade: 8th
Subject: Science
School Year: 2010-2011
Teacher: Ms. Luna
First Quarter
Second Quarter
Unit 1: Humans and Heredity (23 days)
Unit 3: Earth’s Changes Over Time (35 days)
Chapter 1: The Nature of Science
Content:
 Science is an organized way of studying things and finding answers to questions.
 Scientists use different types of research to discover new information.
 The scientific discoveries often lead to new technologies and vice versa.
Skills:
 Identify how science is a part of your everyday life.
 Describe what skills and tools are used in science.
 Examine the steps used to solve a problem in a scientific way.
 Explain how a well-designed investigation is developed.
 Determine how science and technology influence your life.
 Analyze how modern technology allows scientific discoveries to be communicated
worldwide.
Chapter 7: Plate Tectonics
Content:
 The continental drift hypothesis states that continents have moved slowly to their
current locations.
 New discoveries led to the theory of seafloor spreading as an explanation for
continental drift.
 The theory of plate tectonics explains the formation of many of earth’s features and
geologic events.
Skills:
 Describe the hypothesis of continental drift.
 Identify evidence supporting continental drift.
 Explain seafloor spreading.
 Recognize how age and magnetic clues support seafloor spreading.
 Compare and contrast different types of plate boundaries.
 Explain how heat inside Earth causes plate tectonics.
 Recognize features caused by plate tectonics.
Chapter 8: Earthquakes and Volcanoes
Content:
 Earthquakes are vibrations, or seismic waves, often caused by a rupture and elastic
rebound of rocks along a fault.
 Magma, solids, and gas can erupt explosively or quietly from cracks in Earth’s
surface, producing a variety of volcanic materials, events, and landforms.
 Convection currents in Earth can cause plate motion, which produces conditions
that cause volcanoes and earthquakes.
Skills:
 Explain how earthquakes are caused by a buildup of strain in Earth’s crust.
 Compare and contrast primary, secondary, and surface waves.
 Recognize earthquake hazards and how to prepare for them.
 Explain how volcanoes can affect people.
 Describe how types of materials are produced by volcanoes.
 Compare how three different volcano forms develop.
 Explain how the locations of volcanoes and earthquake epicenters are related to
tectonic plate boundaries.
 Explain how heat within Earth causes Earth’s plates to move.
Chapter 9: Clues to the Earth’s Past
Content:
 Fossils are used as evidence of past life on Earth.
 Relative ages of rocks can be determined by examining their locations within a
sequence of rock layers.
 Absolute ages of rocks can be determined by using properties of the atoms that
make up materials.
Skills:
 List the conditions necessary for fossils to form.
 Describe several processes of fossil formation.
 Explain how fossil correlation is used to determine rock ages.
 Determine how fossils can be used to explain changes in Earth’s surface, life forms,
and environments.
 Describe methods used to assign relative ages to rock layers.
 Interpret gaps in the rock record.
 Give an example of how rock layers can be correlated with other rock layers.
 Identify how absolute age differs from relative age.
 Describe how the half-lives of isotopes are used to determine a rock’s age.
Chapter 10: Geologic Time
Content:
 Fossils provide evidence that life on Earth has evolved throughout geologic time.
 Primitive life forms existed on Earth during Precambrian time and the Paleozoic
Era.
 Life forms continued to evolve through the Mesozoic Era and the current Cenozoic
Era.
Skills:
 Explain how geologic time can be divided into units.
 Relate changes of Earth’s organisms to divisions on the geologic time scale.
 Describe how plate tectonics affects species.
 Identify characteristic Precambrian and Paleozoic life-forms.
 Draw conclusions about how species adapted to changing environments in
Precambrian time and the Paleozoic Era.
Chapter 2: Traits and How They Change
Content:
 The interaction of the environment with alleles and genes affects phenotypes.
 Genetics is the science that studies how genetic traits pass from parents to offspring.
 If an environment changes over time, species adapt to the changes, move to a new
environment, or become extinct.
Skills:
 Compare and contrast phenotype and genotype.
 Describe some effects the environment has on traits.
 Explain how traits are formed.
 Differentiate between genetics and heredity.
 Explain the results of Mendel’s pea plant experiments.
 Identify the results shown by a Punnett square.
 Explain how living and nonliving environmental factors impact evolution.
 Describe how natural selection occurs in a species.
 Compare and contrast selective breeding and natural selection.
Chapter 3: Interactions of Human Systems
Content:
 All organisms require certain elements that combine and form countless substances
needed for life.
 A cell can survive only if substances can move within the cell and pass through its
cell membrane.
Skills:
 Describe the basic structure and function of a typical human cell.
 Identify and describe the five levels of organization in the body.
 Discuss how body sustems work together to carry out important life functions.
 Explain how negative feedback mechanisms in the body help maintain homeostasis.
 Compare negative feedback mechanisms and positive feedback mechanisms in the
body.
Unit 2: Ecology (26 days)
Chapter 4: Interactions of Life
Content:
 All living and nonliving things on Earth are organized into levels, such as
communities and ecosystems.
 A population’s size is affected by many things, including competition.
 Every organism has a role in its environment
Skills:
 Identify places where life is found on Earth.
 Define ecology.
 Observe how the environment influences life.
 Identify methods for estimating population sizes.
 Explain how competition limits population growth.
 List factors that influence changes in population size.
 Describe how organisms obtain energy for life.
 Explain how organisms interact.
 Recognize that every organism occupies a niche.
Chapter 5: The Nonliving Environment
Content:
 Both living and nonliving parts of an environment are needed for organisms to
Year Long Plan
Grade: 8th
Subject: Science
School Year: 2010-2011
survive.
 Many nonliving elements on Earth, such as water and oxygen, are recycled over and
over.
 All living things use energy.
Skills:
 Identify common abiotic factors in most ecosystems.
 List the components of air that are needed for life.
 Explain how climate influences life in an ecosystem.
 Explain the importance of Earth’s water cycle.
 Diagram the carbon cycle.
 Recognize the role of nitrogen in life on Earth.
 Explain how organisms produce energy-rich compounds.
 Describe how energy flows through ecosystems.
 Recognize how much energy is available at different levels in a food chain.
Chapter 6: Ecosystems
Content:
 Ecosystems gradually change over time.
 Land on Earth is divided into large geographic areas that have similar climates and
ecosystems.
 Both Earth’s saltwater and freshwater are divided into a variety of ecosystems.
Skills:
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Explain how ecosystems change over time.
Describe how new communities begin in areas without life.
Compare pioneer species and climax communities.
Explain how climate influences land environments.
Identify seven biomes of Earth.
Describe the adaptations of organisms found in each biome.
Compare flowing freshwater and standing freshwater ecosystems.
Identify and describe important saltwater ecosystems.
Identify problems that affect aquatic ecosystems.
Teacher: Ms. Luna
 Describe changes in Earth and its life-forms at the end of the Paleozoic Era.
 Compare and contrast characteristic life-forms in the Mesozoic and Cenozoic Eras.
 Explain how changes caused by plate tectonics affected organisms during the
Mesozoic Era.
 Identify when humans first appeared on Earth.
Unit 4: Earth’s Place in the Universe (25 days)
Chapter 11: The Sun-Earth-Moon System
Content:
 Earth is a sphere that rotates on a tilted axis and revolves around the Sun.
 Eclipses + phases of the Moon occur as the Moon moves in relation to Sun + Earth.
 Knowledge of the Moon’s structure and composition has been increased by many
spacecraft missions to the Moon.
Skills:
 Examine Earth’s physical characteristics.
 Differentiate between rotation and revolution.
 Discuss what causes seasons to change.
 Identify phases of the Moon and their cause.
 Explain why solar and lunar eclipses occur.
 Infer what the moon’s surface features may reveal about its history.
 Describe recent discoveries about the Moon.
 Examine facts about the Moon that might influence future space travel.
Chapter 12: The Solar System
Content:
 Gravity assisted in the formation of the solar system and continues to hold the
planets in their places as they orbit the Sun.
 The inner planets—Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars—are the closest planets to the
sun.
 The outer planets—Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune—are the farthest planets
from the Sun.
 Comets, meteoroids, and asteroids are smaller than planets but also orbit the Sun
and are part of the solar system.
Skills:
 Compare models of the solar system.
 Explain that gravity holds the planets in their orbit.
 List the inner planets in order from the Sun.
 Describe each inner planet.
 Compare and contrast Venus and Earth.
 Describe the characteristics of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
 Describe the largest moons of each of the outer planets.
 Describe how comets change when they approach the Sun.
 Distinguish among comets, meteoroids, and asteroids.
 Explain that objects from space sometimes impact Earth.
Chapter 13: Stars and Galaxies
Content:
 For many years, people have been learning about stars by observing their locations
in the sky and studying their light.
 The Sun is an enormous ball of gas which produces energy by fusing hydrogen into
helium.
 Stars pass through several stages as they evolve.
 By studying galaxies, scientist have observed that the universe is expanding.
Skills:
 Explain why some constellations are visible only during certain seasons.
 Distinguish between absolute magnitude and apparent magnitude.
 Explain that the Sun is the closest start to Earth.
 Describe the structure of the Sun.
 Describe sunspots, prominences, and solar flares.
 Describe how stars are classified.
 Compare the Sun to other types of stars on the H-R diagram.
 Describe how stars evolve.
 Describe the Sun’s position in the Milky Way Galaxy.
 Explain that the same natural laws that apply to our solar system also apply in other
galaxies.
Third Quarter
Fourth Quarter
Unit 5: Chemistry of Matter (30 days)
Unit 6 : (Continued)
Chapter 20 : Work and Simple Machines
Content:
 Work is done when a force causes an object to move in the same direction as the
Chapter 14: Inside the Atom
Content:
 Atoms contain protons and neutrons in a very small, dense nucleus and electrons in
Year Long Plan
Grade: 8th
Subject: Science
School Year: 2010-2011
a larger area around he nucleus.
 For atoms of a given element, the number of protons is fixed, but the number of
neutrons can vary.
Skills:
 Explain how scientists discovered subatomic particles.
 Explain how today’s model of the atom developed.
 Describe the structure of the nuclear atom.
 Explain that all matter is made up of atoms.
 Describe the process of radioactive decay.
 Explain what is meant by half-life.
 Describe how radioactive isotopes are used.
Chapter 15: The Periodic Table
Content:
 Elements are arranged in order of increasing atomic number on the periodic table.
 Representative elements within a group have similar properties.
 Transition elements are metals with a wide variety of uses.
Skills:
 Describe the history of the periodic table.
 Interpret an element key.
 Explain how the periodic table is organized.
 Recognize the properties of representative elements
 Identify uses for representative elements.
 Classify elements into groups based on similar properties.
 Identify properties of some transition elements.
 Distinguish lanthanides from actinides.
Chapter 16: Atomic Structure and Chemical Bonds
Content:
 When atoms combine, they become more stable.
 Elements bond by transferring electrons or by sharing electrons.
Skills:
 Identify how electrons are arranged in an atom.
 Compare the relative amount of energy of electrons in an atom.
 Compare how the arrangement of electrons in an atom is related to its place in the
periodic table.
 Compare and contrast ionic and covalent bonds.
 Distinguish between compounds and molecules.
 Identify the difference between polar and nonpolar covalent bonds.
 Interpret chemical shorthand.
Chapter 17: Chemical Reactions
Content:
 Atoms are not created or destroyed in chemical reactions—they are just rearranged.
 Reaction rates are affected by several things, including temperature, concentration,
surface area, inhibitors, and catalysts.
Skills:
 Determine whether or not a chemical reaction is occurring.
 Determine how to read and understand a balanced chemical equation.
 Examine some reactions that release energy and others that absorb energy.
 Explain the law of conservation of mass.
 Determine how to describe and measure the speed of a chemical reaction.
 Identify how chemical reactions can be sped up or slowed down.
Unit 6: Motion, Forces, and Energy (32 days)
Chapter 18: Motion and Momentum
Content:
 Motion is a change in position.
 Acceleration occurs when an object speeds up, slows down, or changes direction.
 In a collision, momentum can be transferred from one object to another.
Skills:
 Define distance, speed, and velocity.
 Graph motion.
 Define acceleration.
 Predict what effect acceleration will have on motion.
 Define momentum.
 Explain why momentum might not be conserved after a collision.
 Predict motion using the law of conservation of momentum.
Chapter 19: Force and Newton’s Laws
Content:
 If the net force on an object is zero, the velocity of the object doesn’t change.
 The acceleration of an object equals the net force divided by the object’s mass.
Teacher: Ms. Luna
force.
 A machine can change the force needed to do a job.
 There are six types of simple machines.
Skills:
 Recognize when work is done.
 Calculate how much work is done.
 Explain the relationship between work and power.
 Explain how a machine makes work easier.
 Calculate the mechanical advantages and efficiency of a machine.
 Explain how friction reduces efficiency of a machine.
 Distinguish among the different simple machines.
 Describe how to find the mechanical advantage of each simple machine.
Chapter 21: Thermal Energy
Content:
 Atoms and molecules in an object are moving in all directions with different speeds.
 Thermal energy moves by conduction, convection, and radiation.
 Engines convert thermal energy to mechanical energy; refrigerators transfer thermal
energy from one place to another.
Skills:
 Explain how temperature is related to kinetic energy.
 Describe three scales used for measuring tempterature.
 Define thermal energy.
 Explain the difference between thermal energy and heat.
 Describe three ways thermal energy is transferred.
 Identify materials that are insulators or conductors.
 Describe what a heat engine does.
 Explain that energy can exist in different forms, but is never created or destroyed.
 Describe how an internal combustion engine works.
 Explain how refrigerators move thermal energy.
Unit 7 : Physical Interactions (23 days)
Chapter 22: Electricity
Content:
 Electric charges are positive or negative and exert forces on each other.
 A batter produces an electric field in a closed circuit that causes electric charges to
flow.
 Electrical energy can be transferred to devices connected in an electric circuit.
Skills:
 Describe how objects can become electrically charged.
 Explain how an electric charge affects other electric charges.
 Distinguish between electric conductors and insulators.
 Describe how electric discharges such as lightning occur.
 Relate voltage to the electrical energy carried by an electric current.
 Describe a battery and how it produces an electric current.
 Explain electrical resistance.
 Explain how voltage, current, and resistance are related in an electric current.
 Investigate the difference between series and parallel circuits.
 Determine the electric power used in a circuit.
 Describe how to avoid dangerous electric shock.
Chapter 23: Magnetism
Content:
 Moving electric charges produce magnetic fields.
 Magnetic fields can produce electric currents.
Skills:
 Describe the behavior of magnets.
 Relate the behavior of magnets to magnetic fields.
 Explain why some materials are magnetic.
 Explain how electricity can produce motion.
 Explain how motion can produce electricity.
Chapter 24: Waves, Sound, and Light
Content:
 Waves transfer energy outward from a vibrating object.
 Sound is a compressional wave that travels only through matter.
 Light waves are electromagnetic waves that travel in matter or space.
Skills:
 Explain how waves transport energy.
 Distinguish among transverse, compressional, and electromagnetic waves.
 Describe the properties of waves.
Year Long Plan
Grade: 8th
Subject: Science
 Forces always act in equal and opposite pairs.
Skills:
 Distinguish between balanced and net forces.
 Describe Newton’s first law of motion.
 Explain how friction affects motion.
 Explain Newton’s second law of motion.
 Explain why the direction of force is important.
 Identify the relationship between the forces that objects exert on each other.
School Year: 2010-2011
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Teacher: Ms. Luna
Describe reflection, refraction, and diffraction of waves.
Describe how sound waves are produced.
Explain how sound waves travel through matter.
Describe the relationship between loudness and sound intensity.
Explain how humans hear sound.
Identify the properties of light waves.
Describe the electromagnet spectrum.
Describe the types of electromagnetic waves that ravel from the Sun to Earth.
 Explain human vision and color perception.