Year Plan
Grade 8 School Year
September- December
January - March
April - June
Theme Chosen to Integrate
Disciplines
Contact and Change
Cause and Effect
Movement and Change
Social Studies 8:
7th Century to 1750
Growth & Development
Collisions and Impact
Contact and colonization
Kinetic Molecular Theory and
Atomic Energy and Light
Plate Tectonics
Cells
Science 8:
Education for the 21st Century
Numeracy- Integrated
throughout the year (will scaffold
new skills as necessary)
Literacy- integrated throughout
the year
(will scaffold new skills as
necessary)
•
•
Data enable us to draw conclusions and make predictions in an unstable world
Patterns allow us to see relationships and develop generalizations
•
Exploring stories and other texts helps us understand ourselves and make connections to others and to the
world
Texts are socially, culturally, and historically constructed
People understand text differently depending on their worldviews and perspectives
•
•
Rationale for Year Plan
This year in Social Studies 8, our goals are to look at the following big ideas:
● Contacts and conflicts between peoples stimulated significant cultural, social, political
change.
● Human and environmental factors shape changes in population and living standards
● Exploration, expansion, and colonization had varying consequences for different
groups.
● Changing ideas about the world created tension between people wanting to adopt new
ideas and those wanting to preserve established traditions.
Along with the above mentioned social studies goals we have been collaborating with the
Science 8 teacher, and even though she is not planning a UDL curriculum she shared with us
her curricular timeline, which we then incorporated into our big ideas for socials 8.
● Life processes are performed at the cellular level.
● The behavior of matter can be explained by the kinetic molecular theory and atomic
theory
● Energy can be transferred as both a particle and a wave.
● The theory of plate tectonics is the unifying theory that explains Earth’s geological
processes
We then took the 4 big ideas from each subject and organized them together in the following
ways. In developing units, we thought about how we could connect the multitude of
inventions across this time period and investigate the impacts of new developments over time
created across social, political and cultural domains of humanity.
Term 1:
Theme: Contact and Change - Growth and Development
Essential Questions: To what extent does contact result in change? To what extent does
change result in conflict?
Big Ideas:
• Human environmental factors shaped changes in population and living standards
• Changing Ideas about the world created tension between people wanting to adopt new
ideas and those wanting to preserve established traditions
• The behavior of matter can be explained by the kinetic molecular theory and atomic
theory.
We organized the term this way because we saw cross curricular connections with how
scientific developments created great change within society across social, political and
cultural landscapes. Humanity saw so much growth and change not only with regards to
demographics but also with inventions and discoveries. The realization that the earth is not
flat lead to travels which lead to more connection between cultures. The invention of the
printed word allows for the spread of knowledge and better documentation of information.
The Greeks’ discovery of atoms, Sir Isaac Newton’s announcement the laws of gravity, and
others lead to a greater understanding of the world and inventions to improve general life.
Term 2
Theme: Cause and Effect – Collisions and Impact
Big Ideas:
•
•
Exploration, expansion, and colonization had varying consequences for different
groups.
Plate Tectonics
This term we have connected the ideas that exploration and expansion happened as a result of
geography and that geology, volcanology, and other natural events played a role in the
movement of people. Local content would include Aboriginal Stories of Earthquakes and
Tsunami’s.
Term 3
Theme: Movement and Change
Big Ideas:
• Contact and Colonization
• Cells
This term we are connections the human factors that affect change. Famine, illness (Black
Plague and its spread across Europe) and other social (Feudal System, Land Ownership, etc.)
and political reasons for colonization. Robert Hook discovered plant cells in 1665 in cork.
Leonardo Da Vinci’s human body and other inventions and discoveries that cause movement
and change.
Term 1 Unit Planner: Growth and Development
Big Ideas
• Contacts and conflicts between peoples stimulated significant cultural, social, political
change
• Changing ideas about the world created tension between people wanting to adopt new
ideas and those wanting to preserve established tradition
Key Questions:
To what extent does contact result in change? To what extent does change result in conflict?
MI Activities
Core Competencies:
Communication (C)
Thinking (T)
Personal & Social (PS)
MI
Activity
Whole Class:
• Newspaper/ multimedia exploration of current and past
events.
C
T
PS
C
T
PS
C
T
PS
VL
LM
EX
Group:
• Poetry
• Debate
Group:
• Look through Census records
• Calculate percentages (death/birth rates,
immigrants/emigrants)
• Graphs comparing populations
• Timeline (How do we organize all the events in a logical
way?)
• Cause and effect (use statistics to find if certain changes
results in change of population)
Whole Class:
• Discuss why should we care about the lives of people around
the world?
Individual:
• Present your view on this question using one of the MIs.
Curricular Competencies
Assess the significance of people, places, events, and developments at
particular times and places
Explain different perspectives on past or present people, places, issues,
and events, and compare the values, worldviews, and beliefs of human
cultures and societies in different times and places
Assess the credibility of multiple sources and the adequacy of evidence
used to justify conclusions
Make ethical judgments about past events, decisions, and actions, and
assess the limitations of drawing direct lessons from the past
Use social studies inquiry processes and skills to: ask questions; gather,
interpret, and analyze ideas; communicate findings and decisions
Assess the significance of people, places, events, and developments at
particular times and places
Assess the credibility of multiple sources and the adequacy of evidence
used to justify conclusions
Questioning and predicting (science)
Use Social Studies inquiry processes and skills to: ask questions;
gather, interpret, and analyze ideas; and communicate findings and
decisions
Core Competencies:
Communication (C)
Thinking (T)
Personal & Social (PS)
C
T
PS
C
T
PS
C
T
PS
C
T
PS
MI
Activity
Whole Class:
• Teacher writes directions on the board in another language
and discuss feelings and strategies for
IA
B.
K.
IE
MR
C
T
PS
N
C
T
PS
VS
Group:
• Create a triple Venn Diagram to compare your life today to
the life of a 13 year old peasant in Feudal Europe and that of
a 13 year old noble in Feudal Europe
Group:
• Role Play about the different roles played by people in the
Feudal system- social hierarchy
Whole Class:
• Guest Speaker
• Field trip: Museum of Anthropology
Group
• Conversation between European and Indigenous group
Whole Class:
• Explore music during this time period (7th century - 1750)
Group:
• Compose a song written from the perspective of a historical
figure.
Whole Class:
• Indigenous Plant walk, identifying local indigenous plants
and predicting and researching their uses.
Individual/group:
• Compare and contrast human-plant relationships in different
parts of the world in a given time period (e.g. early 1700s),
including worldviews and values reflected in different plant
uses
Whole Class:
• Look at artistic representations of ‘the New World’ and
make meaning and connections
Curricular Competencies
Make ethical judgments about past events, decisions, and actions, and
assess the limitations of drawing direct lessons from the past.
Characterize different time periods in history, including periods of
progress and decline, and identify key turning points that mark periods
of change
Determine what factors led to particular decisions, actions, and events,
and assess their short-and long-term consequences
Explain different perspectives on past or present people, places, issues,
and events, and compare the values, worldviews, and beliefs of
human cultures and societies in different times and places
Determine what is significant in an account, narrative, map, and text
Explain different perspectives on past or present people, places, issues,
and events, and compare the values, worldviews, and beliefs of human
cultures and societies in different times and places
Assess the credibility of multiple sources and the adequacy of evidence
used to justify conclusions
Term 1 - Growth and Development / Homeostasis and Transformation Rubrics
DISCIPLINES
Beginning to Develop
Approaching Expectations
Fully Meeting Expectations
Recognize and list cultural and
societal changes that arose from
contact.
Able to explain why conflict arose
from contact and identify the
resulting cultural, social, and
political implications.
Able to analyze how contacts and
conflicts between peoples
stimulated significant cultural,
social, political change with
supporting examples.
Is able to formulate and justify
multiple perspectives on the pros
and cons of contact.
Can list human and environmental
factors that shape changes in
population.
Describes human and
environmental factors that shape
changes in population and living
standards.
Can analyze how human and
environmental factors shape
changes in population and living
standards with supporting
examples.
Infers and gives opinions about
the effects of human actions on
population and living standards
and the interdependence of
humans and the environment.
Can state examples of ways in
which expansion and colonization
had consequences for different
groups
Can explain how exploration,
expansion and colonization had
varying consequences for different
groups with supporting examples.
Investigates or infers a new and
/or different aspect of exploration,
expansion and colonization.
Expresses an understanding of the
concept of decolonization and/or
indigenization,
Using different MI’s to connect
and explain these ideas.
Can identify and give examples of
established traditions and new
ideas around the world.
Can explain how changing ideas
about the world created tension
between people wanting to adopt
new ideas and those wanting to
preserve established traditions
with supporting examples.
Can compare and contrast between
established traditions and new
traditions, and justify the value of
each.
Social Studies
Essential
Understanding
1
Social Studies
Essential
Understanding
2
Social Studies
Essential
Understanding
3
Can define exploration, expansion,
and colonization.
Social Studies
Essential
Understanding
4
Can recognize that people around
the world have different traditions.
Exceeding Expectations
DISCIPLINES
Beginning to Develop
Science
Essential
Understanding
1
Science
Essential
Understanding
2
State the cell theory and use it to
sort living and nonliving things.
Approaching Expectations
Identify eukaryotes and
prokaryotes
Describe photosynthesis and
cellular respiration
Recognizes and sorts different
states of matter and
reproduces the basic structure of
an atom
Describes bonding forces within
an atom (nuclear vs.
electromagnetic)
Recognize that light is a type of
energy and that it, like all types of
energy, can be transferred
Identify the different types of
electromagnetic energy found on
the electromagnetic spectrum
Can recognize geological
processes and formations
(earthquakes, volcanoes,
mountains, tectonic plates,
continents formed from Pangaea,
etc.)
Can identify and the layers of the
earth and demonstrate how
different plate boundaries form.
Science
Essential
Understanding
3
Science
Essential
Understanding
4
Fully Meeting Expectations
Exceeding Expectations
Demonstrate how organelles’
functions contribute to life
processes.
Relate microorganisms (e.g.
bacteria) to humans (good and bad
interactions and interventions)
Is able to explain the behavior of
matter using the kinetic molecular
theory and atomic theory with
supporting examples.
Demonstrates that behavior of
matter can be explained by KMT
and Atomic theory.
Connect atomic theory to
macroscopic world (environment,
industry, lifestyle)
Can explain that electromagnetic
energy can be transferred as both a
particle and a wave with
supporting examples.
Can apply electromagnetic energy
to everyday life, industrial
operations, medical institutions,
etc.
Can compare plate boundaries to
geological formations and
recognize that one causes the
other.
Can relate plate tectonic activity to
major geological events and
discuss their implications to
different cultures (e.g.
Aboriginal).
Assessment Rationale
Assessment necessitates that students understand that the goal is to show their
thinking. The focus on assessment is on process-oriented learning. When planning for
assessment, it is important to make students aware of the big ideas and essential questions
that they will be exploring. The responsibility of the teacher is to create well-defined
assessment tools and expectations which help guide students’ learning processes.
Another important part of assessment, in accordance with our teaching philosophy, is
that the goals of the unit encompass the learning goals for all students as much as possible.
All students will be assessed in a way that builds and maintains their self-worth, within a
trusting, safe and caring environment. To ensure that we as teachers act within our teaching
philosophy, student self-assessment will play a key role in our holistic assessment approach.
Summative assessment will be ongoing throughout learning units. As students work
through the centers, the teacher will be circulating throughout the classroom assessing the
learning that is taking place. It is important for students to understand the learning
expectations; thus, having clearly defined rubrics is important. Further, the ability of students
to work cooperatively and collaboratively as a group and the ability to take responsibility for
their learning will also play a role in this assessment. Summative assessment will not only
involve informal observations of learning but will also include group work presentations,
student participation during whole group presentations and one-to-one conversations.
Formative Assessment will involve a variety of opportunities for students to show
what they have learned over course of the unit. Formative assessment will occur during the
learning process to inform teaching practice and areas for whole class learning or the
development of mini lessons during a unit. For many of our unit activities, students should
explore their knowledge of multiple intelligences to create products to show their thinking.
Musical-Rhythmic Activity
Instructions:
Compose a song written from the perspective of a historical figure selected from the time period of the 7th Century to 1750. You can
compose a new song or change the lyrics to a popular song.
Example:
“…We had a hundred years of war. This girl had to do
something!
So I did it like a dude, cut my hair.
Gave up wearing dresses, bought a pair.
Of trousers, no blouses. Said I wanna fight Angleterre.
Charles let me join the army, army, army.
Know that might sound barmy, barmy, barmy.
I proved impressive,
Hit by an arrow a-a-and lived…”
-Joan of Arc Song by “Horrible Histories”
Bodily-Kinesthetic Activity
Instructions:
Create a role play that includes characters from all of the feudal system social classes and reflects the dynamics, interactions and
activities from that time period.
Intrapersonal Intelligence Activity
Instructions:
Create a triple Venn diagram to compare and contrast your life today to that of a 13 year old peasant in Feudal Europe as well as that
of a 13 year old noble in Feudal Europe
Interpersonal Intelligence Activity
Instructions:
The first interactions between Europeans and other parts of the world probably lead to interesting conversations.
PPick one of the interactions below (cross out your choice) and create a script involving at least one person from each side.
A. 1488: Vasco da Gama (Portugal) and his crew went to India
B. 1451: Christopher Columbus and his Spanish crews went to the Bahamas and met the
“Indians”
C. 1519: Hernando Cortéz (Spain) went to Mexico and met the Aztecs in Mexico
D. 1534: Jacques Cartier (France) met the Mi’kmaq people by the St. Lawrence River
E. 1497: John Cabot (English) met the Beothuk people of Newfoundland