Grade 8 physical Science Family & COMMUNITY RESOURCES

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Course Overview

Course Overview

Middle school physical science learning is intended to equip students to address the following four essential questions as identified within the Next Generation Science Standards.

How do atomic and molecular interactions explain the properties of matter that we see and feel?
How can one describe physical interactions between objects and within systems of objects?
How can energy be transferred from one object or system to another?
What are the characteristic properties of waves and how can they be used?

The middle school Performance Expectations (PEs) in the physical sciences address these essential questions and build on PK-5 ideas and experiences. They blend Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCI) with Scientific and Engineering Practices (SEP) and Crosscutting Concepts (CCC) to support students in developing usable knowledge to explain real-world phenomena in the physical sciences. In Physical Science, students regularly engage in asking scientific questions that drive their investigations and lead to increasingly sophisticated evaluation of data and their presentation. Students also have opportunities to learn and apply engineering-specific practices such as designing solutions to identified problems. Read the full NGSS storyline (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. for physical science.

The learning sequence in Physical Science is organized around a series of driving questions that provide the context and motivation for learning. While exploring each driving question, students engage in unique learning experiences that are carefully designed to immerse them in the SEPs as they construct their understanding of important concepts. These experiences are carefully sequenced so that students encounter ideas that are developmentally and cognitively appropriate. By the end of the learning experiences, students will be able to meet the NGSS performance expectations and address the driving questions.

Middle School Physical Science Grade 8 is comprised of five Driving Questions:

Why do things sometimes get damaged when they hit each other?
How can a sound make something move?
How can a magnet move another object without touching it?
How Can We Use Chemical Reactions to Design a Solution to a Problem?
How do scientists use their knowledge of chemistry to understand growth and repair of living things?

Unit I: Contact Forces

Unit OVERVIEW

Why do things sometimes get damaged when they hit each other?

Oh, no! I’ve dropped my phone! Most of us have experienced the panic of watching our phones slip out of our hands and fall to the floor. We’ve experienced the relief of picking up an undamaged phone and the frustration of the shattered screen. This common experience anchors learning in the Contact Forces unit as students explore a variety of phenomena to figure out, “Why do things sometimes get damaged when they hit each other?”

Student questions about the factors that result in a shattered cell phone screen lead them to investigate what is really happening to any object during a collision. They make their thinking visible with free-body diagrams, mathematical models, and system models to explain the effects of relative forces, mass, speed, and energy in collisions. Students then use what they have learned about collisions to engineer something that will protect a fragile object from damage in a collision. They investigate which materials to use, gather design input from stakeholders to refine the criteria and constraints, develop micro and macro models of how their solution is working, and optimize their solution based on data from investigations. Finally, students apply what they have learned from the investigation and design to a related design problem.

We are proud that this unit has earned the highest score available and has been awarded the NGSS Design Badge.

Image Source: OpenSciEd

Standards

MS-PS2-1 Apply Newton’s Third Law to design a solution to a problem involving the motion of two colliding objects.

MS-PS2-2 Plan an investigation to provide evidence that the change in an object’s motion depends on the sum of the forces on the object and the mass of the object.

MS-PS 3-1

MS-PS3-2 Develop a model to describe that when the arrangement of objects interacting at a distance changes, different amounts of potential energy are stored in the system.

MS-ETS1-2 Evaluate competing design solutions using a systematic process to determine how well they meet the criteria and constraints of the problem.

MS-ETS1-3 Analyze data from tests to determine similarities and differences among several design solutions to identify the best characteristics of each that can be combined into a new solution to better meet the criteria for success

Resources

8.1 Lesson 7 Collisions Simulation

8.1 Lesson 9 Microscopic Friction Simulation

Unit 2: Sound waves

Unit OVERVIEW

How can a sound make something move? In this unit, students develop ideas related to how sounds are produced, how they travel through media, and how they affect objects at a distance. Their investigations are motivated by trying to account for a perplexing anchoring phenomenon — a truck is playing loud music in a parking lot and the windows of a building across the parking lot visibly shake in response to the music.

They make observations of sound sources to revisit the K–5 idea that objects vibrate when they make sounds. They figure out that patterns of differences in those vibrations are tied to differences in characteristics of the sounds being made. They gather data on how objects vibrate when making different sounds to characterize how a vibrating object’s motion is tied to the loudness and pitch of the sounds they make. Students also conduct experiments to support the idea that sound needs matter to travel through, and they will use models and simulations to explain how sound travels through matter at the particle level.

Decorative Image Source: OpenSciEd

Standards

This unit builds toward the following NGSS Performance Expectations (PEs):

MS-PS4-1. Use mathematical representations to describe a simple model for waves that includes how the amplitude of a wave is related to the energy in a wave. [Clarification Statement: Emphasis is on describing waves with both qualitative and quantitative thinking.]
MS-PS4-2. Develop and use a model to describe that waves are reflected, absorbed, or transmitted through various materials. [Clarification Statement: Emphasis is on both light and mechanical waves. Examples of models could include drawings, simulations, and written descriptions.]

Resources

8.2 Lesson 10 Sound in a Medium

8.2 Lesson 12 Sound Tone Generator

Unit 3: Forces at a Distance

Unit OVERVIEW

How can a magnet move another object without touching it ? This unit launches with a slow-motion video of a speaker as it plays music. In the previous unit, students developed a model of sound. This unit allows students to investigate the cause of a speaker’s vibration in addition to the effect.

Students dissect speakers to explore the inner workings, and engineer homemade cup speakers to manipulate the parts of the speaker. They identify that most speakers have the same parts–a magnet, a coil of wire, and a membrane. Students investigate each of these parts to figure out how they work together in the speaker system. Along the way, students manipulate the components (e.g. changing the strength of the magnet, number of coils, direction of current) to see how this technology can be modified and applied to a variety of contexts, like MagLev trains, junkyard magnets, and electric motors.

We are proud that this unit has earned the highest score available and has been awarded the NGSS Design Badge.

Decorative Image Source: OpenSciEd

Standards

This unit builds towards the following NGSS Performance Expectations (PEs):

MS-PS2-3: Ask questions about data to determine the factors that affect the strength of electric and magnetic forces.
MS-PS2-5: Conduct an investigation and evaluate the experimental design to provide evidence that fields exist between objects exerting forces on each other even though the objects are not in contact.
MS-PS3-2: Develop a model to describe that when the arrangement of objects interacting at a distance changes, different amounts of potential energy are stored in the system.
MS-PS2-2*: Plan an investigation to provide evidence that the change in an object’s motion depends on the sum of the forces on the object and the mass of the object.
MS-PS3-1*: Construct and interpret graphical displays of data to describe the relationships of kinetic energy to the mass of an object and to the speed of an object.
MS-PS3-5*: Construct, use, and present arguments to support the claim that when the kinetic energy of an object changes, energy is transferred to or from the object (p. 61).

*These performance expectations are developed across multiple units. This unit reinforces or works toward these NGSS PEs that students should have previously developed or will develop more fully in future units.

Resources

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Unit 4: chemical Reactions & Energy

Unit OVERVIEW

How can we use chemical reactions to design a solution to a problem?

In this 21-day unit, students are introduced to the anchoring phenomenon—a flameless heater in a Meal, Ready-to-Eat (MRE) that provides hot food to people by just adding water. In the first lesson set, students explore the inside of an MRE flameless heater, then do investigations to collect evidence to support the idea that this heater and another type of flameless heater (a single-use hand warmer) are undergoing chemical reactions as they get warm. Students have an opportunity to reflect on the engineering design process, defining stakeholders, and refining the criteria and constraints for the design solution.

In the second lesson set, students develop their design solutions by investigating how much food and reactants they should include in their homemade heater designs and go through a series of iterative testing and redesigning. This iterative design cycle includes peer feedback, consideration of design modification consequences, and analysis of impacts on stakeholders. Finally, students optimize their designs and have another team test their homemade heater instructions.

Decorative Image Source: OpenSciEd

Standards

This unit builds towards the following NGSS Performance Expectations (PEs):

MS-PS1-6: Undertake a design project to construct, test, and modify a device that either releases or absorbs thermal energy by chemical processes.
MS-ETS1-2: Evaluate competing design solutions using a systematic process to determine how well they meet the criteria and constraints of the problem.
MS-ETS1-3: Analyze data from tests to determine similarities and differences among several design solutions to identify the best characteristics of each that can be combined into a new solution to better meet the criteria for success.
MS-ETS1-4: Develop a model to generate data for iterative testing and modification of a proposed object, tool, or process so that an optimal design can be achieved.

Resources

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Unit 5: Towards High School Biology

Unit OVERVIEW

How do scientists use their knowledge of chemistry to understand growth and repair of living things? Students engage in unique learning experiences, which help them to understand Disciplinary Core Ideas within PS1: Matter and its Interactions and LS1: From Molecules to Organisms: Structures and Processes. The overarching goal of the Toward High School Biology unit is for students to apply ideas about what happens to atoms and molecules during chemical reactions and to explain observable phenomena in nonliving systems and in the bodies of living organisms. Specifically, in order to grow and repair body structures, plants and animals build polymers through chemical reactions that link monomers and also produce water molecules. Animals get many of the monomers from breaking down other polymers in the foods they eat, whereas plants make monomers through other chemical reactions. During all these chemical reactions, atoms are rearranged and conserved; therefore, total mass is conserved.

Decorative Image Source: AAAS

Standards

MS PS1-1: Develop models to describe the atomic composition of simple molecules and extended structures.

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.

MS-PS1-3: Gather and make sense of information to describe that synthetic materials come from natural resources and impact society.

MS-PS1-4: Develop a model that predicts and describes changes in particle motion, temperature, and state of a pure substance when thermal energy is added or removed.

MS-PS1-5: Develop and use a model to describe how the total number of atoms does not change in a chemical reaction and thus mass is conserved.

MS-LS1-6: Construct a scientific explanation based on empirical evidence for the role of photosynthesis in the cycling of matter and the flow of energy into and out of organisms

MS-LS1-7: Develop a model to describe how food is rearranged through chemical reactions forming new molecules that support growth and/or release of energy as this matter moves through an organism

Resources

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