Grade 8 Physical Science

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. 

1. How do atomic and molecular interactions explain the properties of matter that we see and feel?
2. How can one describe physical interactions between objects and within systems of objects?
3. How can energy be transferred from one object or system to another?
4. 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:

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

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 Links to an external site..

Image Source: OpenSciEd

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

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 Links to an external site.. 

Decorative Image Source: OpenSciEd

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

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