Grade 8 Health
Course Description
This course examines key aspects of adolescent health, including nutrition, substance use, and reproductive wellness. Students will learn about the six essential nutrients, the role of physical activity, and how personal choices impact overall well-being. Emphasis is placed on developing the knowledge and skills needed for healthy decision-making and responsible lifestyle choices related to nutrition, substance use, and sexual health.
Course Big Ideas
- Good nutrition helps all body systems work together, providing the energy and nutrients needed for growth, health, and performance.
- Making smart food choices depends on understanding what’s in our food and recognizing how culture, media, and emotions influence eating habits.
- Personal choices, genetics, and activity levels shape overall health, growth, and how the body functions over time.
- Substances such as alcohol, tobacco and other drugs/substances affect thinking, mood, coordination, and long-term health, sometimes causing lasting damage like addiction or liver disease.
- Continued drug use can cause tolerance and withdrawal symptoms, creating a difficult cycle of addiction.
- Good decision-making, goal setting, and saying no to risky situations help individuals avoid substance use and make responsible health choices.
- Understanding the physical, emotional, and social changes of adolescence, as well as male and female reproductive components and sexual health.
- Abstinence and contraceptive options to avoid pregnancy and STD/HIV prevention.
Course Essential Questions
- How do our food choices, genetics, and lifestyle decisions influence our growth, body image, and overall health now and in the future?
- How can knowledge, decision-making, and refusal skills empower adolescents to understand the effects of drugs on the body and make healthy, substance-free choices?
- How do the physical, emotional, and social changes of adolescence and early adulthood influence personal identity, relationships, and responsible sexual decision-making that promote healthy development?
Course Competencies
- Explain how healthy nutrition choices support all body systems, how the body uses food for energy and growth, and how food choices and outside influences affect overall health.
- Evaluate how daily habits, physical activity, and inherited traits influence body performance and wellness throughout life.
- Describe how alcohol, tobacco and other drugs/substances affect physical and mental health, as well as recognize the signs and risks of addiction, and use refusal and goal-setting skills to make healthy, responsible choices.
- Identify the physical, emotional, and social changes during adolescence and early adulthood; describe reproductive system functions; and explain how abstinence, contraceptives, sexual decision-making, STD/HIV prevention, and resources contribute to healthy development.
Course Assessments
- Formative Assessments
- Summative Assessments
- Project based learning