What's 8th grade science all about?

Our focus is on interactions and the changes that occur on Earth because of them. Some changes are sudden, while other changes occur over long periods of time. All of these different types of changes, and the interactions that cause them, will ultimately help us to understand the unity and diversity of life on Earth. Instead of just studying contact forces, non-contact forces, space, genetics, evolution, and biodiversity as separate units (and in separate grade levels) we will instead integrate all of these topics together. Each piece of science content becomes part of a larger puzzle to solve. This is how science works in the real world!

Each unit we study this year will bring us closer to answering the essential question for the year: "How do interactions between living and non-living things explain the local and global changes we see throughout Earth's geologic history?".  

[California Department of Education. CA Science Framework. (2016). Chapter 5 Grades 6-8 Preferred Integrated Model. (p. 185). Retrieved from https://ngss.sdcoe.net/MS-Integrated-Grade-8 ]