SC.8.P.8.5

This can be used as a homework assignment or completed in the computer lab. Students will have to research information on one element and complete an advertisement for that element as if they were trying to market it.

Type: Assessment

Students will observe and analyze visual representations. Students will sort, classify and compare their findings to known characteristics of pure substances (elements and compounds) and mixtures. Students will differentiate matter into pure substances (elements and compounds) and mixtures on a basic molecular level. Students will use hands-on card sorting to create a rule for sorting matter. The definitions of pure substance, mixture, element, and compound will be introduced.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson is a high interest presentation and activity that presents the concepts of elemental composition, temperature effects, and states of matter geared to 8th graders.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will learn about known elements and discover the products that can be made when those elements react.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this Model-Eliciting Activity (MEA), students rank locations that NASA should search within our solar system for life. Students begin by reading about the origins of life on Earth and locations within our solar system with the potential for life. After students create a ranked list, they must report their findings to NASA in the form of a letter that also includes the procedure used in ranking their choices. A second request is sent from NASA to include distance from Earth as a factor in the ranking of locations and students must return a letter with their revised rankings and the new procedure used.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. MEAs resemble engineering problems and encourage students to create solutions in the form of mathematical and scientific models. Students work in teams to apply their knowledge of science and mathematics to solve an open-ended problem while considering constraints and tradeoffs. Students integrate their ELA skills into MEAs as they are asked to clearly document their thought processes. MEAs follow a problem-based, student-centered approach to learning, where students are encouraged to grapple with the problem while the teacher acts as a facilitator. To learn more about MEAs visit: https://www.cpalms.org/cpalms/mea.aspx

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson, part of a series, introduces students to construct the idea that atoms combine to form molecules.

Type: Lesson Plan

Learn to demonstrate that there are a finite number of elements that combine to form all existing compounds, whether living or non-living, and in any state of matter.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This article explains the science behind why and how fire burns. The article describes why fire is not considered matter and what is required for fire to burn, as well as how the atoms rearrange themselves during the combustion process. 

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This text examines how humans and all things around us are made of elements created in stars. The article references fusion, the powerful collision of enormous stars, and the intense explosion of supernovas. All of this is tied to the creation of heavier elements that hurtle through space, to be reassembled as distant solar systems.

Type: Text Resource

Students look more deeply into the structure of the atom and play a game to better understand the relationship between protons, neutrons, electrons, and energy levels in atoms and their location in the periodic table. Students will also explore covalent and ionic bonding.

Type: Unit/Lesson Sequence

Students test their knowledge about the names of elements and learn some of their properties through the hint provided with each scrambled word

Type: Video/Audio/Animation

This interactive periodic table provides a good tool for teachers to obtain a historic background about the nature and properties of the elements

Type: Video/Audio/Animation

This unique periodic table presents the elements in an interesting visual display. Select an element to find an image of the element, a description, history, and even an animation. Other chemical data is linked as a PDF file (requires Acrobat Reader).

Type: Virtual Manipulative

This is a worksheet of examples to distinguish between elements, compounds and mixtures and between heterogeneous and homogeneous mixtures and between colloids and suspensions.

Type: Worksheet