Science Netlinks: Benchmarks

A. Displacing the Earth from the Center of the Universe

By the end of 8th grade, students should know that:

The motion of an object is always judged with respect to some other object or point and so the idea of absolute motion or rest is misleading.

Telescopes reveal that there are many more stars in the night sky than are evident to the unaided eye, the surface of the moon has many craters and mountains, the sun has dark spots, and Jupiter and some other planets have their own moons.

B. Historical Perspectives

There are no benchmarks for this subsection at this grade level.

C. Historical Perspectives

There are no benchmarks for this subsection at this grade level.

D. Historical Perspectives

There are no benchmarks for this subsection at this grade level.

E. Historical Perspectives

There are no benchmarks for this subsection at this grade level.

F. Understanding Fire

By the end of 8th grade, students should know that:

From the earliest times until now, people have believed that even though millions of different kinds of material seem to exist in the world, most things must be made up of combinations of just a few basic kinds of things.

Today, scientists are still working out the details of what the basic kinds of matter are and of how they combine, or can be made to combine, to make other substances.

Experimental and theoretical work done by French scientist Antoine Lavoisier in the decade between the American and French revolutions led to the modern science of chemistry.

Lavoisier's work was based on the idea that when materials react with each other many changes can take place but that in every case the total amount of matter afterward is the same as before.

Alchemy was chiefly an effort to change base metals like lead into gold and to produce an elixir that would enable people to live forever.

G. Splitting the Atom

By the end of 8th grade, students should know that:

The accidental discovery that minerals containing uranium darken photographic film, as light does, led to the idea of radioactivity.

In their laboratory in France, Marie Curie and her husband, Pierre Curie, isolated two new elements that caused most of the radioactivity of the uranium mineral.

H. Historical Perspectives

There are no benchmarks for this subsection at this grade level.

I. Discovering Germs

By the end of 8th grade, students should know that:

Pasteur found that infection by disease organisms germs caused the body to build up an immunity against subsequent infection by the same organisms.

Changes in health practices have resulted from the acceptance of the germ theory of disease.

In medicine, as in other fields of science, discoveries are sometimes made unexpectedly, even by accident.

J. Harnessing Power

By the end of 8th grade, students should know that:

Until the 1800s, most manufacturing was done in homes, using small, handmade machines that were powered by muscle, wind, or running water.

The invention of the steam engine was at the center of the Industrial Revolution.