Georgia Performance Standards, Grade Eight

Co-Requisite – Characteristics of Science

Habits of Mind

S8CS1. Students will explore the importance of curiosity, honesty, openness, and skepticism in science and will exhibit these traits in their own efforts to understand how the world works.

a. Understand the importance of—and keep—honest, clear, and accurate records in science
Video: What is Science?
Video: Science Fair Panic, Part One
Video: Science Fair Panic, Part Two
Video: Science Fair Panic, Part Three
Video: Science Fair Panic, Part Four
Experiment: How Much Rain?
Experiment: Pinecone Weather

b. Understand that hypotheses can be valuable even if they turn out not to be completely accurate.
Experiment: Bernoulli in the Shower
Experiment: Hypothesis
Video: Floating Cups
Experiment: Speed of Electricity

S8CS2. Students will use standard safety practices for all classroom laboratory and field investigations.

a. Follow correct procedures for use of scientific apparatus.
Video: Dry Ice
Video: Strange Flame, Part One
Video: Heating a Balloon

b. Demonstrate appropriate techniques in all laboratory situations.

c. Follow correct protocol for identifying and reporting safety problems and violations.

S8CS3. Students will have the computation and estimation skills necessary for analyzing data and following scientific explanations.

a. Analyze scientific data by using, interpreting, and comparing numbers in several equivalent forms, such as integers, fractions, decimals, and percents.
Video: Light as Air
Video: Light Speed Chocolate
Video: Planets and Pennies
Video: What's the Password
Video: Fish in a Bucket
Video: More Fish in a Bucket
Experiment: How Much Rain?
Video: Relative Motion
Experiment: Nine Folds

b. Find the mean, median, and mode and use them to analyze a set of scientific data.

c. Apply the metric system to scientific investigations that include metric to metric conversions (i.e., centimeters to meters).
Video: Light Speed Chocolate

d. Decide what degree of precision is adequate, and round off appropriately.

e. Address the relationship between accuracy and precision.

f. Use ratios and proportions, including constant rates, in appropriate problems.

S8CS4. Students will use tools and instruments for observing, measuring, and manipulating equipment and materials in scientific activities utilizing safe laboratory procedures.
a. Use appropriate technology to store and retrieve scientific information in topical, alphabetical, numerical, and keyword files, and create simple files.

b. Use appropriate tools and units for measuring objects and/or substances.
Video: Light as Air
Video: Light Speed Chocolate
Video: Density Column
Experiment: A Cool Change
Experiment: Cooling Fans
Experiment: Newton's Laws
Experiment: Fish in a Bucket
Experiment: More Fish in a Bucket

c. Learn and use standard safety practices when conducting scientific investigations.
Video: Dry Ice
Video: Strange Flame, Part One
Video: Heating a Balloon

S8CS5. Students will use the ideas of system, model, change, and scale in exploring scientific and technological matters.

a. Observe and explain how parts can be related to other parts in a system such as the role of simple machines in complex machines.
Video: Food Chain: Producers
Video: Bird on a Wire
Video: Simple Circuit

b. Understand that different models (such as physical replicas, pictures, and analogies) can be used to represent the same thing.
Video: Planets and Pennies
Experiment: Homemade Fossil Dig
Experiment: Sweet Geology
Video: Making Craters
Experiment: Scale Model of a Solar System
Video: Bird on a Wire

S8CS6. Students will communicate scientific ideas and activities clearly.

a. Write clear, step-by-step instructions for conducting scientific investigations, operating a piece of equipment, or following a procedure.
b. Write for scientific purposes incorporating information from a circle, bar, or line graph, data tables, diagrams, and symbols.
c. Organize scientific information in appropriate tables, charts, and graphs, and identify relationships they reveal.
Video: Science Fair Panic, Part Four

S8CS7. Students will question scientific claims and arguments effectively.

a. Question claims based on vague attributions (such as “Leading doctors say...”) or on statements made by people outside the area of their particular expertise.
Video: What is Science?
Video: Floating Cups

b. Identify the flaws of reasoning in arguments that are based on poorly designed research (e.g., facts intermingled with opinion, conclusions based on insufficient evidence). Video: What is Science?

c. Question the value of arguments based on small samples of data, biased samples, or samples for which there was no control.
Video: What is Science?

d. Recognize that there may be more than one way to interpret a given set of findings.

The Nature of Science

S8CS8. Students will be familiar with the characteristics of scientific knowledge and how it is achieved.

Students will apply the following to scientific concepts:

a. When similar investigations give different results, the scientific challenge is to judge whether the differences are trivial or significant, which often
requires further study. Even with similar results, scientists may wait until an investigation has been repeated many times before accepting the results as
meaningful.
Video: What is Science?
Video: Science Fair Panic, Part One
Video: Science Fair Panic, Part Two
Video: Science Fair Panic, Part Three
Video: Science Fair Panic, Part Four
Experiment: Hypothesis

b. When new experimental results are inconsistent with an existing, well-established theory, scientists may pursue further experimentation to determine
whether the results are flawed or the theory requires modification.
Video: What is Science?
Experiment: Speed of Electricity

c. As prevailing theories are challenged by new information, scientific knowledge may change.
Video: What is Science?
Experiment: Speed of Electricity
Video: Floating Cups

S8CS9. Students will understand the features of the process of scientific inquiry.

Students will apply the following to inquiry learning practices:

a. Investigations are conducted for different reasons, which include exploring new phenomena, confirming previous results, testing how well a theory
predicts, and comparing different theories. Scientific investigations usually involve collecting evidence, reasoning, devising hypotheses, and formulating
explanations to make sense of collected evidence.
Video: What is Science?
Video: Science Fair Panic, Part One
Video: Science Fair Panic, Part Two
Video: Science Fair Panic, Part Three
Video: Science Fair Panic, Part Four
Experiment: Speed of Electricity
Video: Floating Cups
Experiment: Bernoulli in the Shower

b. Scientific investigations usually involve collecting evidence, reasoning, devising hypotheses, and formulating explanations to make sense of collected
evidence.
Video: What is Science?
Video: Science Fair Panic, Part One
Video: Science Fair Panic, Part Two
Video: Science Fair Panic, Part Three
Video: Science Fair Panic, Part Four
Experiment: Hypothesis

c. Scientific experiments investigate the effect of one variable on another. All other variables are kept constant.
Video: What is Science?
Video: Science Fair Panic, Part Three

d. Scientists often collaborate to design research. To prevent this bias, scientists conduct independent studies of the same questions.

e. Accurate record keeping, data sharing, and replication of results are essential for maintaining an investigator’s credibility with other scientists and society.
Video: What is Science?
Video: Science Fair Panic, Part One
Video: Science Fair Panic, Part Two
Video: Science Fair Panic, Part Three
Video: Science Fair Panic, Part Four

f. Scientists use technology and mathematics to enhance the process of scientific inquiry.
Video: What is Science?
Experiment: How Much Rain?
Video: Relative Motion
Video: Light as Air

g. The ethics of science require that special care must be taken and used for human subjects and animals in scientific research. Scientists must adhere to
the appropriate rules and guidelines when conducting research.

S8CS10. Students will enhance reading in all curriculum areas by:

a. Reading in All Curriculum Areas
• Read a minimum of 25 grade-level appropriate books per year from a variety of subject disciplines and participate in discussions related to curricular learning in all areas.
• Read both informational and fictional texts in a variety of genres and modes of discourse.
• Read technical texts related to various subject areas.
b. Discussing books
• Discuss messages and themes from books in all subject areas.
• Respond to a variety of texts in multiple modes of discourse.
• Relate messages and themes from one subject area to messages and themes in another area.
• Evaluate the merit of texts in every subject discipline.
• Examine author’s purpose in writing.
• Recognize the features of disciplinary texts.
c. Building vocabulary knowledge
• Demonstrate an understanding of contextual vocabulary in various subjects.
• Use content vocabulary in writing and speaking.
• Explore understanding of new words found in subject area texts.
d. Establishing context
• Explore life experiences related to subject area content.
• Discuss in both writing and speaking how certain words are subject area related.
• Determine strategies for finding content and contextual meaning for unknown words.

Physical Science

S8P1. Students will examine the scientific view of the nature of matter.
a. Distinguish between atoms and molecules.

b. Describe the difference between pure substances (elements and compounds) and mixtures.

c. Describe the movement of particles in solids, liquids, gases, and plasmas states.

d. Distinguish between physical and chemical properties of matter as physical (i.e., density, melting point, boiling point) or chemical (i.e., reactivity, combustibility).
Experiment: Density Column
Video: Density Column
Video: A Watched Pot

e. Distinguish between changes in matter as physical (i.e., physical change) or chemical (development of a gas, formation of precipitate, and change in color).
Experiment: States of Matter
Experiment: Dew on the Window
Video: Ice Cream Science
Video: A Watched Pot
Video: Egg States

f. Recognize that there are more than 100 elements and some have similar properties as shown on the Periodic Table of Elements.

g. Identify and demonstrate the Law of Conservation of Matter.
Video: Taking a Marshmallow Apart

S8P2. Students will be familiar with the forms and transformations of energy.

a. Explain energy transformation in terms of the Law of Conservation of Energy.

b. Explain the relationship between potential and kinetic energy.
Video: Half a Water Balloon
Video: High Bounce
Experiment: Pendulum Perils

c. Compare and contrast the different forms of energy (heat, light, electricity, mechanical motion, sound) and their characteristics.

d. Describe how heat can be transferred through matter by the collisions of atoms (conduction) or through space (radiation). In a liquid or gas, currents will facilitate the transfer of heat (convection).
Video: Heating a Balloon
Experiment: How Heat Moves

S8P3. Students will investigate relationship between force, mass, and the motion of objects.
a. Determine the relationship between velocity and acceleration.
Experiment: Newton's Laws

b. Demonstrate the effect of balanced and unbalanced forces on an object in terms of gravity, inertia, and friction.
Video: The Old Tablecloth Trick

c. Demonstrate the effect of simple machines (lever, inclined plane, pulley, wedge, screw, and wheel and axle) on work.

S8P4. Students will explore the wave nature of sound and electromagnetic radiation.

a. Identify the characteristics of electromagnetic and mechanical waves.
Video: About Microwaves
Video: Light Speed Chocolate

b. Describe how the behavior of light waves is manipulated causing reflection, refraction diffraction, and absorption.
Video: Changing the Speed of Light
Video: Solar Power
Video: Why Wet Things Turn Dark
Video: Mirage
Experiment: Fiber Optic Water

c. Explain how the human eye sees objects and colors in terms of wavelengths.

d. Describe how the behavior of waves is affected by medium (such as air, water, solids).
Video: Why Wet Things Turn Dark
Video: Changing the Speed of Light
Experiment: Fiber Optic Water

e. Relate the properties of sound to everyday experiences.

f. Diagram the parts of the wave and explain how the parts are affected by changes in amplitude and pitch.
Experiment: Waves from Waves

S8P5. Students will recognize characteristics of gravity, electricity, and magnetism as major kinds of forces acting in nature.

a. Recognize that every object exerts gravitational force on every other object and that the force exerted depends on how much mass the objects have and how far apart they are.
Experiment: Is Gravity a Theory or a Law?

b. Demonstrate the advantages and disadvantages of series and parallel circuits and how they transfer energy.

c. Investigate and explain that electric currents and magnets can exert force on each other.