Student Favorites 2009: 8th grade

GENERAL

All of these urls are rooted under topic one, use science process and thinking skills, in the eight grade core ILOs.

www.stevespanglerscience.com/experiments/

This website offers many lab experiments, and shows good examples. This website falls under topic one A; where we observe events recording quant. and qual. data through experimentation.

www.teach-nology.com/teachers/lesson_plans/science/basic/

I like this website, because you can choose what you would like to teach, and they provide experiments as well as the procedure write-out and problems.  This fulfills topic one E.

www.chemspider.com

This source provides information on chemicals such as: mass, weight, structure, and applications.  Topic one F can be practiced with this website.

 

Standard 1
Physical/Chemical changes

www.ric.edu/faculty/ptiskus/chemical/
 - This site provides simple every day examples of chemical changes. These examples are age appropriate, and visual aids on the site help further understanding.

www.virted.org/chemist/pcchange.html
 - This site gives simple written explanation of both physical and chemical changes. It also proves useful for assessment, as it has a built in quiz application.

www.quia.com/quiz/303980.html
 - This site is great because it gives a 30 question quiz on differentiating physical and chemical change. This is usually the biggest hurdle for this age group, so it is very applicable to use in the 8th grade classroom.
 

Standard I , objective 4

http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hall/1410/lab-Food-03.html

Making ice cream is an observable chemical change from one form to another.  This site also features the explanation for the chemistry and questions for the students.

http://chem.lapeer.org/Bio1Docs/PhotoLab.html

Photosynthesis is a common chemical reaction.  This lab helps students understand the relationship between photosynthesis and respiration.

http://www.usoe.k12.ut.us/CURR/science/sciber00/8th/matter/sciber/chemchng.htm

Chemical changes can be seen all around us. There are graphics, sounds, and good definitions of concepts on this site.  It also links to other parts of the 8th grade core.

 

Standard II, objective 2 food webs and food chains

http://www.ncat.edu/~student3/pt3/GP10/food_chains_and_webs.htm

North Carolina A&T State University website it compares food chains, and food webs and gives good diagrams to use.

Standard 2, objective 1, tracing the path of energy

http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange1/current/lectures/kling/ecosystem/ecosystem.html

University of Michigan website, it is a good resource for teachers because it gives detailed, but simple to understand definitions, and good diagrams to teach the transfer of energy from the sun all the way to the decomposers.

 

1.

STANDARD III, Processes of rock and fossil formation

OBJECTIVE 1 & 2 (a)

http://www.rocksandminerals4u.com/

This is a useful website that explains the backbone information of introductory geology.  Students can learn about rock and mineral identification, the rock cycle, and the earths interior.  Lesson Plans include rocks vs. minerals, basic earth elements, and the rock cycle.

            OBJECTIVE 4 (a-b)

http://www.teachingboxes.org/earthquakes/

This is a nice website titled “Living in Earthquake Country” and it has multiple lesson plans for teaching secondary level students about how and why earthquakes occur. 

Standard 3, objective 2, fossil formation

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/education/explorations/tours/fossil/index.html

This website is sponsored by the University Of California Museum Of Paleontology. This website gives teachers a lesson plan on how to teach the formation of fossils, and then allows students to use the website as a supplement to the teacher’s instruction to further learn at their own pace.

http://www.ecokids.ca/pub/eco_info/topics/frogs/chain_reaction/index.cfm

This is a very good website that allows kids to build their own food chain as a game, and it explains what happens if a piece of the chain is removed, but I think it is a little too simple for seventh and eighth graders.

 

Standard 3 - Students will understand the processes of rock and fossil formation.

Each site has information that could be useful for all the objectives under this standard.

Objective 1:  Compare rocks and minerals and describe how they are related.

Objective 2:  Describe the nature of the changes that rocks undergo over long periods of time.

Objective 3:  Describe how rock and fossil evidence is used to infer Earth’s history.

Objective 4:  Compare rapid and gradual changes to Earth’s surface.

 

http://www.minsocam.org/MSA/K12/K_12.html

This website is sponsored by the Mineralogical Society of America.  It has diagrams that show how to identify the three types of rocks, what a mineral is, and how to recognize minerals.

http://free.ed.gov/subjects.cfm?subject_id=141&toplvl=47

This website is sponsored by the Federal Resources for Educational Excellence.  There are programs, diagrams, and teaching ideas for earthquakes, volcanoes, weathering processes, fossils and geological time, the rock cycle, and more.  These are all being provided by national and federal agencies such as the National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Geological Survey.  There are also other links for other earth, life, and physical sciences.

http://www.pbs.org/teachers/classroom/6-8/science-tech/resources/?resource_topic=77&resource_type=&resource_site=

This site is sponsored by PBS.  There are a lot of ideas to help teach about geological processes, fossils, and earth history.  It has lesson plans, online and offline activities, as well as audio visual presentations that can be used in class.  There are also lots of ideas for other science topics covered from elementary to high school.

http://school.discoveryeducation.com/lessonplans/6-8.html#

This site has lesson plan ideas for continental drift, forces that change the earth’s surface, rocks, fossils, and more.  It also has links to science fair ideas, contests, puzzle makers, and home resources.  It is sponsored by Discovery Communications so it also has ideas for other science topics as well.

http://geology.com/

This site has a lot of pictures, diagrams, and maps (geology, topographical, and reference).  There is also a section that has ideas for teachers on different geology subjects.  I also liked that it has stories in the news that are geology related.  The website is sponsored by Google, but all the links take you to stuff that has been posted by credible groups such as the U.S. Geological Survey, NASA, The Illinois State Museum, The Geological Society, and more.

1.      

        http://geologyonline.museum.state.il.us/tools/lessons/8.5/lesson.html

This website could be used as a reference for 8th Grade, Standard III, Objective 4.  This website is good practice with analyzing earthquakes as well as showing the energy transfer in earthquakes.

 

Standard IV: Students will understand the relationships among energy, force, and motion.

Objective 1: Investigate the transfer of energy through various materials.

e. Demonstrate how white light can be separated into the visible color spectrum.

http://www.lessonplanspage.com/ScienceExHowMakeASpectrum-RainbowMO68.htm

            This web site has thousands of lesson plans that can be taken, used as is, or morphed to fit whatever you need to have.  This particular activity is a method of turning white light into a rainbow and the lesson plan helps the students discover the science behind it.

Objective 2: Examine the force exerted on objects by gravity.

e. Engineer (design and build) a machine that uses gravity to accomplish a task.

http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/topnav/materials/listbytype/Gravity_Driven_Fluid_Flow.html

            Nasa.gov has a place where you can find lots of ideas and lessons.  This one is a full activity with written objectives for a ‘Gravity-Driven Fluid Flow’ that covers density, properties of fluids, and effects of gravity on materials.

Objective 4: Analyze various forms of energy and how living organisms sense and respond to energy.

a. Analyze the cyclic nature of potential and Kinetic energy

http://www.eduref.org/cgi-bin/printlessons.cgi/Virtual/Lessons/Science/Physics/PHS0014.html

            This is another web site that has lots and lots of lessons plans and activities.  This Lesson plan is good for demonstrating the relationship between 2 conservational energies by gravity.

    http://www.classzone.com/books/ml_science_share/vis_sim/mfm05_pg126_coaster/mfm05_pg126_coaster.html

This website shows how the kinetic and potential energy change at different points on a rollercoaster and how they are related, it’s a great visual.