Eighth Grade

THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE - DEMOCRACY IN CONTEXT: FOUNDATION TO 1865
Students explore the origins of our democracy and individuals and events that have shaped our country. Through the study of upstanders and bystanders, power and identity, and social movements and activism, they develop an understanding of the importance of social, political, and civic engagement. Students continue to develop competency in research, primary source analysis, reading and analyzing fiction and nonfiction works, and thesis-based writing.

MATHEMATICS

Using tools such as digital manipulatives, number machines, graphs, and scatter plots, eighth graders explore deeper mathematical concepts including: transformations and congruence; dilations, similarity, and slope; proportional and linear relationships; linear equations and linear systems; functions and volume; associations in data; exponents and scientific notation; and the Pythagorean Theorem and irrational numbers.

SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING

Through continued use of labs and design challenges, students solve problems pertaining to force and motion; energy; waves; mutation; selection and adaptation; evidence of evolution; and the solar system.

WILD WAYS

Building on their learning from sixth and seventh grade, students turn their attention to practical wilderness skills. Under the supervision of a professional naturalist, eight graders learn navigation and compass reading, wilderness first aid, trail building and maintenance, shelter-building, and more. The year culminates with a weeklong wilderness backpacking trip where they put their learning into practice.