8th Grade White Team

Miss Matush

8th Grade Science

In 8th grade, our students determined which heating system would be the best to heat Bellefonte Middle School! This decision was based on many hands-on investigations, modeling, and classroom discussions. Students were excited to display their findings to our building principal, Dr. Garman for review! See some of our student’s hard work!

For our next unit, students will be investigating force and motion in the upcoming physics unit. This unit will differ from previous ones in that an anchor phenomenon will not be presented at the beginning of the unit. Instead, students will create rules of motion by explaining 3 mini-phenomena, one for each rule of motion, via performing multiple experiments. At the end of the unit, students will apply the rules of motion to a final phenomenon!

Image: student work

Mrs. Rogers

8th Grade ELA

We are now moving into Unit 4: Human Intelligence. We will read several short stories about the different ways people can be intelligent. Students will take an unofficial multiple intelligence test to help them be aware of their preferred learning styles. The short story “Flowers for Algernon” will be a major focus of this unit. The students will also complete another TDA. This time they will evaluate the effectiveness of an argumentative essay and have to defend their reasonings for thinking the article was proving a strong or weak argument. We continue to work on grammar skills, using IXL, and reading independently.

Image:Flowers for Algernon book cover

Mr. Friel

8th Grade Math

As math teachers, we always strive to connect what we are learning in math class to the outside-of-school world. Our main focus is to prepare students for 9th grade and high school level concepts, but we try to expose students to various applications of the current math topic. We like to take this opportunity to pass along some of those concepts and ideas to give you and your students a better understanding of math used later in life.

Epidemiologists are public health experts who work for healthcare organizations, academic institutions, medical facilities and government offices. They collect, analyze and interpret data from a variety of sources on disease and injury with the goal of improving general health outcomes.
Why math matters: Epidemiologists analyze large datasets and statistics to find patterns and trends. Being able to see the story in the numbers—understanding human behavior through quantities, percentages and transmission rates, for example—is key in being able to communicate various risks of disease and injury, as well as how to prevent them.
Civil Engineers perform engineering duties in planning, designing, and overseeing construction and maintenance of building structures, and facilities, such as roads, railroads, airports, bridges, harbors, channels, dams, irrigation projects, pipelines, power plants, and water and sewage systems.
Why math matters: A civil engineer uses nearly every form of math at one point in time to do her job. Algebra is used on a daily basis, and many engineers will have to deal with differential equations, statistics, and calculus occasionally. A good portion of a civil engineer's time is not spent doing math, but when the time comes civil engineers have to be very comfortable with all the forms of math, especially those that deal with physics.
Marine Architects design, develop, and evaluate the operation of marine vessels and ship machinery and related equipment, such as power supply and propulsion systems.
Why math matters: Marine engineering, like other engineering and natural science disciplines, is primarily based upon mathematics. All marine engineering programs require students to take courses in calculus, which builds off of algebra, and differential equations, as well as in statistics.

Mr. Jones

8th Grade Social Studies

From March into April social studies class has moved from our civics curriculum into our history curriculum. We have started at Prehistory of the Americas and will work our way back up through the European Colonization of North American.

Along the way we try to squeeze as many of the following activities in as possible: STEM activity on land bridge theory, museum projects on early North American cultures, Maps of manor systems, coloring/drawing representations of the Renaissance, and handmade astrolabes.

Page updated

Report abuse