8th Grade Curriculum

2320 East Avenue R
Palmdale, CA 93550
(661) 265-0045

8th Grade Curriculum
Lancaster Campus

Social Studies	- Our Old World backgrounds - Exploration and discovery - Growth and development of the U. S. - Colonial life - Struggle for independence - U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights - Westward movement - Civil War	- Reconstruction - U.S. as a world power - Meaning of democracy - Our American culture - U.S. political system - U.S. economic system - U.S. government - U.S. geography - Advanced map and globe skills

Science	- Scientific method - Scientific nomenclature - Scientific measurement - Ecology and environment - Conservation - Composition of earth - Ocean, atmosphere - Weather - Water and its uses - Weathering and erosion - Recycling of resources - Magnetism and electricity - Heat and light	- Forces in liquids and gases - Wave, mechanical, electrical, and nuclear energy - The earth's movement - Newton's three laws of motion - Machines - The atom - Periodic table of elements - Compounds and mixtures - Chemical changes - Astronomy - The universe and Milky Way - Space and space travel

Language Arts	- Independent reading - Literal, inferential, and evaluative reading skills - Literary terms - Novel, short story, narrative poetry - Nonfiction - Biographies of great Americans - American poets and storytellers - Creative dramatics - Listening and speech activities - Advanced dictionary work - Extended vocabulary - Figures of speech	- Spelling - Infinitive, participle, gerund, predicate nominative, predicate adjective, direct and indirect object - Kinds of sentences and their parts - Functions of sentence elements - Writing simple business letters - Report-writing skills - Improving skills in using basic reference materials - Inductive and deductive reasoning

Health and Safety	- Grooming - Functions of the body - The body's utilization of food - Types and function of foods - Environmental hazards - Community sanitation an health	- Health care services - Sexually transmitted diseases - Accident prevention, safety, and first aid - Mental hygiene

Mathematics	- Maintaining skills in fundamental operations - Factoring and products - Sets and simple sentences - Numeration systems - Using fractions and decimals - Ratio, proportion, and percent - Equalities and inequalities - Simple formulas and equations - Graphing an equation - Powers and roots of rational numbers	- Polynomials - Metric and non-metric geometry - Pythagorean Theorem - Scale drawing - Right-triangle trigonometry - Customary and metric measurement - Permutations - Probability statistics and statistical terms - Mathematic of insurance, banking and taxes

Return to "Curriculum" Page