8.E.1:  Understand the hydrosphere and the impact of humans on local systems and the effects of the hydrosphere on humans.
Essential Understanding:  The hydrosphere affects humans and humans affect the hydrosphere.
Essential Questions:  What is the structure  and function of the hydrosphere?
                                How does the hydrosphere affect humans?
                                How do humans; affect the hydrosphere

8E1.1:  Explain the structure of the hydrosphere including:

•         Water distribution on Earth

•         local river basins and water availability

Essential Understanding:  The students will understand:

•             that the water is one of the most common substances on the surface of the Earth

•            that the ocean is an integral component of the world's climate due to its capacity to collect, drive and mix water, heat, and carbon       dioxide.
•         that the water cycle is the continuous movement of water in and around the Earth.
•         that a river basin is the portion of land drained by a river and its tributaries
•         that for land-dwellers, everyone lives in a river basin

Essential Questions:

•           how do factors interact to determine the distribution of water in the hydrosphere?
•         How does the water cycle affect water distribution on Earth?
•         Hoe do river basins affect availability?
  

8.E.1.2:  Summarize evidence that Earth's oceans are a reservoir of nutrients, minerals, dissolved gases, an  life forms:  estuaries, marine ecosystems, upwelling, and behavior of gases in the marine environment, and deep ocean technology and understandings gained.

Essential Understandings:  The students will understand:

•             That the ocean is a dynamic system in which many chemical, biological, and physical changes are taking place.
•             That estuaries are areas where fresh and salt water mix, producing variations in salinity and high biological activity
  
•             That from the seashore to the deepest depths, oceans are hoe to some of the most diverse life on Earth
•             That in the ocean there are innumerable individual food chains overlapping and intersecting to form complex food webs.
•             How winds have a powerful effect on the oceans and are an important force in creating ocean currents
•               That seawater has many different gases dissolved in it, especially nitrogen, oxygen and carbon dioxide
•             That carbon dioxide is one the most important gases that dissolve in the ocean.
•             That the ocean is one of Earth's most valuable natural resources

Essential Questions: 

•                 How do we know what the oceans are made of?
•                 How do Earth's oceans affect other ecosystems?
  

8.E.1.3: Predict the safety and potability of water supplies in North Carolina based on physical and biological factors, including:  temperature, dissolved oxygen, pH, nitrates and phosphates, turbidity, bio-indicators.

Essential Understanding:  The student will understand:

•             That the health of a water system in determined by the balance between physical, chemical and biological variables
•             That the temperature of water in rivers and lakes determines the kinds of organisms that can survive there.
•             That measuring dissolved oxygen is an important factor in determining water quality
•             That pH is a measure of how acidic or basic water is
•             That nitrogen and phosphorous are essential plant nutrients
•             That turbidity is a measure of how clear water is.
•             That the water quality of a body of water can also be assessed by using bio indicators (macro invertebrates)

Essential Questions: 

•             How safe and drinkable is the water around North Carolina?

•             How are physical and biological factors used to determine the quality of water?

8.E.1.4:  conclude that the good health of humans requires:
            Monitoring of the hydrosphere
            Water quality standards
            Methods of water treatment
            Maintaining safe water quality
            Stewardship

Essential Understandings:  The students will understand:

•         That water quality is a term used to describe the chemical, physical, and biological characteristics of water

•         That water quality standards outline the water quality pollution control program that is mandated and regulated by local, regional and federal agencies
•         Clear water many contain odorless, tasteless, and colorless harmful contaminants

          That water is essential to life

Essential Questions:

•             What can we do to protect our water supply?

8.L.3: Understand how organisms interact with and respond to the biotic and abiotic component of their environment.
Essential Understanding:  the students will understand:
Living things and non living things in and environment can affect organisms.
 
Essential Questions:
1)  How do living things obtain and use energy?
2)  How do organisms survive in harsh or changing environments?

8.L.3.1:  Explain how factors such as food, water, shelter, and space affect population in an ecosystem.

Essential Understandings:   The students will understand that:

• ecosystems are complex, interactive systems that include both biological communities (biotic) and physical (abiotic) components of the environment

• ecosystems are dynamic in nature; their characteristics can vary over time.

• a population is a group of organisms belonging to the same species that live in a particular area

• population density measures the number of individual organisms living in a defined space.

Essential Questions:

1. How do factors such as food, water, shelter and space affect population in an ecosystem?

1. How do these factors interact to affect populations in an ecosystem?

8.L.3.2:  Summarize teh relationship among producers, consumers, and decomposers including the positive and negative consequences of such interaction including:

• coexistence and cooperation

• competition

• parasitism

• mutualism

Essential Understandings:  The students will understand:

• that organisms in an ecosystem constantly interact

• that an ecosystem is defined as a community (all the organisms in a given area) and the abiotic factors (such as water, soil, or climate) that affect them.

• that in any ecosystem, organisms and population with similar requirements for food, water, oxygen, or other resources may compete with each other for limited resources.

Essential Question:

1. How and why do organisms interact with one another?

8.L.3.3: Explain how the flow of energy within food webs is interconnected with the cycling of matte (including water, nitrogen, carbon dioxide and oxygen) 

Essential Understandings:  The students will understand that:

• the sun is the ultimate source of energy

• food provides molecules that serve as fuel and building material for all organisms

• over a long time, matter is transferred fro one organism to another repeatedly and between organisms and their physical environment

• the flow of energy through ecosystems can be described and illustrated in food chains, food webs and  pyramids (energy, number, and biomass)

• the flow of energy is interconnected with the cycling of matter

Essential Questions:

1. How do food webs model the distribution of energy in an ecosystem?

1. In what ways do matter and energy connect?