Grade-8 Science Stems And Expectations By: Valerie Nadeau

Earth, Sun & Moon The sun has 99.8% of the total mass in our Solar System. The suns energy comes from the basic nuclear fusion. The temperature of the sun core is about 15million degrees Celsius. The suns atmosphere has three layers; the photosphere, the Chromospheres, and the Corona. The sun is all manly made out of gas. ¾ of the sun’s mass is hydrogen; ¼ is helium and other important gases. k/sciencezone/science/earthmoon sun/EarthMoonSunInfo.html

Energy We’ve used the Sun for drying clothes and food for thousands of years but only recently have we been able to use it for generating power. The Sun is 150 million kilometers away, and amazingly powerful. Every minute, enough energy arrives at the Earth to meet our demands for a whole year.

Solar System The rotation of the planets would be in a rotation system way. Gravity on mars and the entire solar panel system affects the force on the planets and their moon’s. Our solar system is almost about five million years old. It is made up of eight planets, a handful of so called dwarf planets, and more then 170 moons, as well as dust, gas, and thousands of asteroids, and comets, All orbiting around a central sun.

Size & Scale The astronomical unit (AU or au or a.u. or sometimes ua) is a unit of length of approximately 150 million kilometers, and is based on the distance from the earth to the sun.

Stars & Galaxies Asteroids revolve around the sun between the orbits mars and Jupiter. Meteors are chunk of hard solid rock or dust from space. And comets are chunks of ice and dust whose orbits are usually very long, narrow ellipses

Universe Understand Doppler effect can be used to measure the speed a galaxy/star is moving in relation of earth by calculations of the red shift of a stars spectrum. There may be millions, or even billions, of stars in one galaxy. There are billions of galaxies in the universe. Meteors are chunk of hard solid rock or dust from space. And comets are chunks of ice and dust whose orbits are usually very long, narrow ellipses.

Atmosphere, Climate, & Weather Important factors increased demand for water caused by population growth, changes in the economy, development of new technologies, changes in watershed characteristics and water management decisions.

Composition & Features of earth materials Soon after the Earth formed, unique processes occurred division into metallic core, silicate mantle and crust which, along with surface water, made it different from the other planets in our Solar System.

Fossils Fossils provide evidence of how life has and is changed over time in the years. Fossils found in rocks include…petrified fossils, molds, and casts, carbon films, and trace fossils inside the rock’s inner side. A Fossil may form when sediment quickly covers an animals body. For example: -An animals dies and sinks into shallow waters. -Sediment covers the animal, forms sinking into the oceans floor. -The sediment becomes rock, saving some parts of the animal. -Then erosion eventually takes place, exposing the fossil at the surface.

Rock Cycle The rock cycle is a model that describes the formation, breakdown, and reformation of a rock as a result of sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic processes. All rocks are made up of minerals. Sedimentary rocks are those rocks made up of pieces of other rocks. Metamorphic rocks form when sedimentary, igneous, or other metamorphic rocks are subjected to heat and pressure from burial or contact with intrusive or extrusive igneous rocks. All igneous rocks start out as melted rock, magma” and then crystallite's, or freeze. All rocks “except for meteorites” that are on Earth today are made of the same stuff as the rocks that dinosaurs and other ancient life forms walked, crawled or swam over. While the stuff that rocks are made from stays the same, the rocks do not. Over millions of years, rocks are recycled into other rocks. Moving tectonic platté's help to destroy and form many types of rocks. 02page02.cfm

Water and The Earth’s Surface How much of the earths surface is covered with water? Estimates vary, but somewhere between 70 and 75 percent of the Earth's surface is water-covered. A watershed is the area of land where all of the water that is under it or drains off of it goes into the same place. The unifying element of these large environmental systems is water. It is the active component of the atmosphere, it covers three quarters of the Earth's surface; and is the basis for all life on our planet. Water is essential to our continued existence. bildung/erdsystem-intro.html

Tools Tf = (9/5)*Tc+32; Tc = temperature in degrees Celsius In the metric system, each of the common kinds of measure -- length, weight, capacity -- has one basic unit of measure.

Social Issues(Local And Global) Uses Of Earth Materials

Environmental change

Career Technical Education Connections