Eighth Grade

Project Description: Students explored chemical reactions, guided by what they "Needed to Know" in order to address the driving question for the unit. Students chose which Need to Know questions they wanted to address first, which guided our choices of chemical reaction experiments. Along the way, they explored not only different types of chemical reactions but different ways of modeling those reactions. They used those skills to present an "elephant toothpaste" reaction to the younger grades and explain the reaction using atom models.

Project Description: Students are working together to design a prototype protective device that will protect and prevent something from breaking or being damaged. In this way, they explore Newton's laws, force, friction, and kinetic energy as they test materials and measure forces. In this interdisciplinary project, they are also learning to analyze data and graph their results in coordination with our math curriculum.