Social Studies, Standard A: Geography
Performance Standards - Grade 8

By the end of grade eight, students will:

A.8.1 Use a variety of geographic representations, such as political, physical, and topographic maps, a globe, aerial photographs, and satellite images, to gather and compare information about a place

A.8.2 Construct mental maps of selected locales, regions, states, and countries and draw maps from memory, representing relative location, direction, size, and shape

A.8.3 Use an atlas to estimate distance, calculate scale, identify dominant patterns of climate and land use, and compute population density

A.8.4 Conduct a historical study to analyze the use of the local environment in a Wisconsin community and to explain the effect of this use on the environment

A.8.5 Identify and compare the natural resource bases of different states and regions in the United States and elsewhere in the world, using a statistical atlas, aerial photographs, satellite images, and computer databases

A.8.6 Describe and distinguish between the environmental effects on the earth of short-term physical changes, such as those caused by floods, droughts, and snowstorms, and long-term physical changes, such as those caused by plate tectonics, erosion, and glaciation

A.8.7 Describe the movement of people, ideas, diseases, and products throughout the world

A.8.8 Describe and analyze the ways in which people in different regions of the world interact with their physical environments through vocational and recreational activities

A.8.9 Describe how buildings and their decoration reflect cultural values and ideas, providing examples such as cave paintings, pyramids, sacred cities, castles, and cathedrals

A.8.10 Identify major discoveries in science and technology and describe their social and economic effects on the physical and human environment

A.8.11 Give examples of the causes and consequences of current global issues, such as the expansion of global markets, the urbanization of the developing world, the consumption of natural resources, and the extinction of species, and suggest possible responses by various individuals, groups, and nations

Content Standard A

For questions about this information, contact Beverly J. Kniess (608) 266-3706

Last updated on 2/25/2008 1:43:10 PM