How energy moves through and changes matter, from heat and light to energy in living systems.
8.6 Matter and energy: understand that matter is classified by its properties and is conserved in chemical changes inside closed systems
8.6A Explain, with models, how matter is sorted into heterogeneous mixtures, homogeneous mixtures, compounds, or elements
8.6B Identify, using the periodic table, the atoms taking part in chemical reactions
8.6C Describe water's surface tension, cohesion, and adhesion and relate them to observable phenomena such as insects walking on water, droplet formation, and transport in plants
8.6D Compare and contrast acid and base properties, including where their pH falls relative to water
8.6E Investigate mass conservation in chemical reactions and connect it to atoms rearranging, shown with chemical equations, including photosynthesis
Force, Motion, and Energy
How forces change motion, and how energy is transferred, transformed and conserved.
8.7 Force, motion, and energy: understand how force and motion relate within systems
8.7A Apply Newton's second law to calculate and analyze how an object's acceleration depends on the net force acting on it and on its mass
8.7B Investigate and describe how all three of Newton's laws of motion act at the same time in systems such as rocket launches, vehicle restraints, sports, amusement park rides, and tectonic activity on Earth
8.8 Force, motion, and energy: know how waves transfer energy
8.8A Compare wavelength, frequency, and amplitude, including those of the electromagnetic spectrum, in transverse waves
8.8B Explain how electromagnetic waves are used, for example in X-rays, astronomical observations, microwaves, fiber optics, wireless technologies, ultraviolet sterilization, and radiation therapy
Earth and Space
Earth's materials and processes, weather and climate, and the sun, moon and other objects in space.
8.9 Earth and space: describe the universe's characteristics and how large its components are relative to each other
8.9A Describe how stars live and die, and compare and classify stars with the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram
8.9B Sort galaxies into spiral, elliptical, and irregular types and place Earth's solar system inside the Milky Way galaxy
8.9C Research and analyze scientific data that serves as evidence for theories about how the universe began
8.10 Earth and space: know that interactions among the Earth, ocean, and weather systems shape climate
8.10A Describe how the Sun's energy, the hydrosphere, and the atmosphere interact and shape weather and climate
8.10B Identify worldwide patterns of air movement and how they affect local weather
8.10C Describe how ocean currents and air masses interact to form tropical cyclones, including hurricanes and typhoons
8.11 Earth and space: know that human activity and natural events can both affect global climate
8.11A Describe, using scientific evidence, how natural events influence climate, including abrupt shifts in ocean currents, meteor impacts, volcanic eruptions, and greenhouse gas release and absorption
8.11B Describe, using scientific evidence, how human activities, including greenhouse gas release, deforestation, and urbanization, can affect climate
8.11C Describe the carbon cycle
Organisms and Environments
How living things meet their needs, interact with each other and their surroundings, and change over time.
8.12 Organisms and environments: understand how populations and ecosystems remain stable or change
8.12A Explain how energy transfer in ecosystem food webs is affected by disruptions like natural disasters, human intervention, and population changes
8.12B Describe the effects of primary and secondary ecological succession on populations and species diversity after natural events or human activity disrupt ecosystems
8.12C Describe how biodiversity helps an ecosystem stay stable and sustainable and keeps its organisms healthy
8.13 Organisms and environments: know how cell functions keep an organism healthy and how variation and adaptation relate to survival
8.13A Identify what chloroplasts, mitochondria, vacuoles, ribosomes, cytoplasm, the nucleus, the cell wall, and the cell membrane do in plant or animal cells
8.13B Describe how genes on chromosomes determine the traits offspring inherit
8.13C Describe how differences in traits within a population produce physiological, behavioral, and structural adaptations that affect a species' odds of surviving and reproducing across generations
Recurring Themes and Concepts
Big ideas, like patterns, cause and effect, systems and models, that connect every area of science.
8.5 Recurring themes: understand that unifying themes and concepts link ideas across science disciplines
8.5A Recognize patterns and apply them to link scientific phenomena and make sense of them, or to design solutions
8.5B Find and investigate relationships between causes and effects to analyze problems or explain scientific phenomena
8.5C Analyze how changes in scale, proportion, or quantity alter structure or performance in a system
8.5D Examine and model a system's parts and how they depend on each other for the system to work
8.5E Analyze and explain how matter cycles and energy flows through systems, and how both are conserved across many kinds of systems
8.5F Analyze and explain how structure and function complement each other in objects, organisms, and systems
8.5G Analyze and explain how conditions or factors influence whether objects, organisms, and systems stay stable or change
Scientific and Engineering Practices
The ways students do science at every level: asking questions, investigating safely, using evidence and communicating explanations.
8.1 Practices: ask questions, spot problems, and safely plan and carry out classroom, lab, and field investigations with suitable tools and models, devoting a minimum of 40% of instructional time to this work
8.1A Ask questions and define problems using observations or information from texts, phenomena, models, or investigations
8.1B Plan and carry out descriptive, comparative, and experimental investigations with scientific practices, and design solutions to problems with engineering practices
8.1C Use suitable safety equipment and safe procedures in lab, classroom, and field investigations, following safety standards approved by the Texas Education Agency
8.1D Use suitable tools: balances, scales, thermometers, temperature probes, graduated cylinders, metric rulers, hand lenses, microscopes with slides, petri dishes, dissecting kits, lab ware, timers, pH indicators, hot plates, periodic tables, force sensors or spring scales, magnets, models and life science models, wave-modeling tools, satellite images, weather maps, lab notebooks or journals
8.1E Gather quantitative data in International System of Units measurements, along with qualitative data, as evidence
8.1F Build suitable tables, graphs, maps, and charts that organize data, using repeated trials and averages
8.1G Develop and use models that represent phenomena, systems, processes, or engineering solutions
8.1H Tell scientific hypotheses, theories, and laws apart
8.2 Practices: analyze and interpret data to find patterns, features, and relationships or correlations that support evidence-based arguments or the evaluation of designs
8.2A Identify the benefits and drawbacks of models, such as those tied to scale, size, materials, and properties
8.2B Analyze data by finding limitations, sources of error, patterns, and significant descriptive statistical features
8.2C Use math calculations to judge quantitative relationships in data
8.2D Evaluate the designs of experiments and engineering projects
8.3 Practices: build evidence-based explanations and share findings, conclusions, and proposed solutions
8.3A Develop explanations and propose solutions backed by data and models that fit accepted scientific ideas, principles, and theories
8.3B Share explanations and solutions, alone and with others, across different settings and formats
8.3C Engage in respectful scientific argument, drawing on empirical evidence and applied scientific explanations
8.4 Practices: know what scientists have contributed and recognize why research and innovation matter to society
8.4A Connect past and present research to scientific thinking and society, covering cost-benefit analysis, how science works as a process, and the contributions of diverse scientists relevant to the content
8.4B Make informed decisions by weighing evidence from several suitable sources for the methods used, accuracy, credibility, and cost-effectiveness
8.4C Research and explore resources like libraries, museums, private companies, professional organizations, online platforms, and mentors who work in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics fields, in order to investigate careers in those fields
How many 8th Grade TEKS Science Standards are there?
There are 49 8th Grade TEKS Science Standards on this page, in 6 strands: Matter and Energy, Force, Motion, and Energy, Earth and Space, Organisms and Environments, Recurring Themes and Concepts, and Scientific and Engineering Practices.
How do I write an assessment for an 8th Grade TEKS Science standard?
Pick a standard on this page and choose Make a quiz or Make an exit ticket. AssessmentWiz opens the generator with the standard's code and text filled in, so every question targets that standard.
What does a code like 8.6A mean?
TEKS science codes read grade, knowledge and skills statement, student expectation. In 8.6A, the first number is the grade (K for kindergarten), the next number is the knowledge and skills statement, and the letter is the student expectation under it.