(1) The benchmark for social studies content standard 3 for a student at the end of grade 8 is the ability to:

(a) analyze and use various representations of the earth (e.g., physical, topographical, and political maps; globes; geographic information systems; aerial photographs; satellite images) to gather and compare information about a place;

(b) locate on a map or globe physical features (e.g., continents, oceans, mountain ranges, land forms) , natural features (e.g., flora, fauna) , and human features (e.g., cities, states, national borders) and explain their relationships within the ecosystem;

(c) analyze diverse land use and explain the historical and contemporary effects of this use on the environment, with an emphasis on Montana;

(d) explain how movement patterns throughout the world (e.g., people, ideas, diseases, products, food) lead to interdependence and/or conflict;

(e) use appropriate geographic resources to interpret and generate information explaining the interaction of physical and human systems (e.g., estimate distance, calculate scale, identify dominant patterns of climate and land use, compute population density) ;

(f) describe and distinguish between the environmental effects on the earth of short-term physical changes (e.g., floods, droughts, snowstorms) , and long-term physical changes (e.g., plate tectonics, erosion, glaciation) ; and

(g) describe major changes in a local area that have been caused by human beings (e.g., a new highway, fire, construction of a new dam, logging, mining) and analyze the probable effects on the community and environment.