Grade Eight Curriculum | Center for Mathematics, Science, and Technology

Animal Habitats engages students by exploring how animals are essential in balancing our ecosystem. Students will learn about animals in the food chain, in plant reproduction, and in domestic capabilities. Through this module’s learning cycles, students will also be able to explain how animals behave in different environments and the requirements of an animal habitat. Students may be familiar with graphs, but they may not understand how to articulate patterns in data via mathematical functions and expressions. These activities will allow students to develop their data modeling skills with graphing calculators as well as create basic actuarial tables. At the end of this module, students will display habitat enclosures designed by utilizing what they learned about controlling habitat requirements.

The Human Settlements module is filled with a wide range of interesting activities related to the communities that humans build. The mathematics activities are primarily related to structures. Science activities deal with water and energy, while technology activities involve essential systems needed by a community to thrive.

Systems presents a wide range of interesting activities related to natural and human-made systems. The functions of subsystems and how they work together to build a larger cohesive system will be examined. Additionally, students will explore the process humans undertake to develop new systems and be provided the opportunity to model and invent their own systems. Number systems will provide the opportunity for growth in the field of mathematics. Science activities will utilize natural systems, such as those in humans and the solar system. Human-made systems will be explored in the Technology section.

Considering that methods of communication surround students no matter their location, these activities will engage students in interacting with the mediums of communication as they learn to understand how they work and, in turn, affect their lives. The various mediums of communication will be deconstructed in terms of electricity, magnetism, and light. Furthermore, sound waves and energy will be discussed in detail. While these activities place a strong emphasis on physics, students will still be engaging with all portions of the IMaST curriculum through these fun activities.