Grade 8 Science
Study Bibles 26
Welcome: how this course works
Welcome to Grade 8 Science, a free course from the PGAMO Free K–12 School built on Core Knowledge Science (OpenSciEd).
How each lesson works
Each unit is built around a real puzzle (its driving question) that students work out through hands-on investigations, the way scientists do. There are two kinds of lesson:
- Investigation lessons — each has a lesson question and takes one to several class days (about 45 minutes a day). Read the teacher’s lesson plan first: it has the steps, materials, timing and discussion prompts. Then print the student pages (procedures and work pages). Teacher references and answer keys are at the bottom of the lesson.
- Science Literacy readings — about once a week students read a short collection from the Student Reader on their own, learn the words to know, complete the exercise page and talk it over.
- Each unit ends with a words quiz.
Plan on about 45 minutes a day, four or five days a week. Some investigations need simple materials — the plan lists them, and the guide often suggests alternatives. This course has 125 lessons in 6 units, which fills a school year at that pace.
The units
- Unit 1: Contact Forces — 22 lessons and a quiz
Why do things sometimes get damaged when they hit each other? - Unit 2: Sound Waves — 20 lessons and a quiz
How can a sound make something move? - Unit 3: Forces at a Distance — 18 lessons and a quiz
How can a magnet move another object without touching it? - Unit 4: Earth in Space — 22 lessons and a quiz
How are we connected to the patterns we see in the sky and space? - Unit 5: Genetics — 23 lessons and a quiz
Why are living things different from one another? - Unit 6: Natural Selection and Common Ancestry — 20 lessons and a quiz
How could things living today be connected to the things that lived long ago?
Study offline
Each unit has a printable study pack (a plan for every lesson with the pages to print, and the words quiz with its key) and the official Teacher Guide, Student Procedure Guide, Student Work Pages and Science Literacy Student Reader. Download them once and teach without the internet.
Unit 1: Contact Forces
Unit 2: Sound Waves
Unit 3: Forces at a Distance
Unit 4: Earth in Space
Unit 5: Genetics
Unit 6: Natural Selection and Common Ancestry
CKSci 6–8 was originally developed and authored by OpenSciEd (www.openscied.org), licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). Additions marked “Core Knowledge Science Literacy” are the work of the Core Knowledge® Foundation (www.coreknowledge.org), made available through licensing under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. This does not in any way imply that OpenSciEd or the Core Knowledge Foundation endorses this work. PGAMO added the lesson pages, study packs and quizzes layout, and shares them under the same license. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · Core Knowledge Science (OpenSciEd). Free for everyone — this course may never be sold.