Kindergarten Ideas - Still on the indicator: "Compare the parts of different animals, e.g., skin, fur, feathers, scales; hand, wing, flipper, fin." Don't forget about bugs! Here's a cool lesson about ants from UEN: http://www.uen.org/Lessonplan/preview?LPid=10666
Comparing and contrasting is a powerful way to help kids see meaning in the forms and functions of the structures in the natural world.
First Grade Ideas - "Analyze the individual similarities and differences within and across larger groups." Here's a simple idea, but one with a lot of potential: plant a bunch of bean seeds in cups, let them grow for a few days, and measure and record their heights. It'll be a great mathematical measurement activity, they can graph their data, plus you'll hit thisscience indicator. That's a win-win-win.
Second Grade Ideas - Here's a very specific indicator: "Explain how smaller rocks come from the breakage and weathering of larger rocks." There are a lot of ways to model this one. Have the kids do some erasing, then look at the eraser shavings. Use graham crackers as a math manipulative, then look at the crumbs. I have some pieces of styrofoam they can break apart, then see how the little white specks break off. All of these model the process of rocks breaking down, through a few mechanisms, to make smaller rocks. Look at grains of sand under a microscope to see that each grain is actually just a little rock. They'll start to put the pieces together to get that all rocks were once bigger rocks, and this process means that all rocks on our planet are slowly breaking down. Water is the biggest factor here - rivers, rain runoff, ocean waves, and flash floods all show how this process occurs. The freeze-thaw is also a big idea here. Freeze a styrofoam cup of water, and it'll come out cracked apart. This shows how ice expands as it freezes, which is a major force in breaking apart rocks. They'll hit this all more explicitly in 4th grade, and again in 5th, but there's a good starting point.
Third Grade Ideas - Continuing with heat and light. Let's look at three indicators together:
- Identify and classify mechanical and electrical sources of heat.
- List examples of mechanical or electrical devices that produce light.
- Predict, measure, and graph the temperature changes produced by a variety of mechanical machines and electrical devices while they are operating.
So, starting with indicator a). This is a stupid indicator. Quote me on that. Here's what I want kids to know: all motion produces friction. (The only thing we can practically look at that produces no friction is space stuff flying around in a vacuum, but everything else on Earth produces heat when it moves, through friction.) Prove this a few ways. Have the kids rub their hands together, or on their desk, or the carpet. Easy to see the friction there. Spin a toy car wheel, and eventually it stops. Because of friction. Sometimes it's harder to observe, like when a fan is running. I'll gladly bring my fan-in-a-box demo by, but essentially we put a little fan in a closed box with a digital thermometer, and turn it on. And the temperature climbs - it gets hotter and hotter inside that little box. Somewhat because of friction, but also because electric motors produce heat as well. This is by far the best way I've seen to tackle indicator c). Every machine produces heat, even a refrigerator. If the kids don't believe you, take them down to the faculty room and have them feel under or behind the fridge. It's warm, sometimes really warm, because the fridge is doing work to pump heat out of the inside. So while the inside gets cooler, the outside gets warmer. That's why the AC unit hangs out the window - it produces cool on one side, but heat on the other.
Anyway, there you can see all machines produce heat. So with the whole mechanical vs. electrical machine thing, definitely talk about where a machine gets its energy. Like a razor scooter vs. an electric scooter. That is an interesting distinction. I'm not sure why we'd want to classify them as electrical vs. mechanical in regards to producing heat. All machines produce heat. That would be like classifying salad bars by seeing which ones offer lettuce. They all have lettuce. Lettuce look at something more interesting.
Fourth Grade Ideas - Water Cycle. Central idea: where does all the energy come from that powers the water cycle? Answer: the Sun. Amazing, if you think about it. Make sure that as you explore the various parts of this system, kids understand that. You might have them construct an argument, given a particular part of the water cycle, on how it's powered by the sun. This is huge, and it's fundamental for their overall understanding of the system.
Next, we've all heard that 97% of water is in the ocean, 2.something% is frozen in ice, and the tiny sliver left is our usable water. But like all big numbers, this is meaningless without some help. Check out this water cycle game:
It covers a few important ideas, such as the fact that water often jumps around to various parts of the cycle, not just following a to b to c every time. Second, look at the "discussion" section after the game. We have various people standing there to represent the parts of the cycle, like the ocean, surface water, etc. But obviously, this isn't proportional. There's a lot more ocean water than surface water. Here's the cool part: to get the proportions right, we'd need about 10,000 people to stand in for the ocean. Then 5 people would stand in for the surface water. And 1 would stand in for the water in the atmosphere. Now that's easier to visualize. That'll help them understand the distribution better than saying things like "a fraction of a percent."
Fifth Grade Ideas - Heredity, continued. If you're looking for a demonstration of characteristics that confer a survival advantage, it doesn't get much better than this Ted Talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/david_gallo_shows_underwater_astonishments/transcript?language=en
I promise you will love showing that to your kids.
Sixth Grade Ideas - Week two for Heat, Light, and Sound. Through all this, we're talking about energy. Here's the upcoming Crosscutting Concept: Energy and matter: Flows, cycles, and conservation. So within this idea of energy, I want to shore up a little more background knowledge for you the teacher. Let's start with heat. The thing we call heat is literally the movement of molecules. All molecules are in motion - in gasses, they zing around. In liquids, they float around and bump into each other. In solids, they stay more in place, but jiggle. All molecules do this. The faster they're moving, the hotter we say that thing is. The slower, the colder. When you put your coke in the fridge, the molecules inside literally start slowing down. If they stopped moving all together, we call that temperature absolute zero. (Convection and conduction are thus the transfer of this kinetic energy - moving molecules bumping into other molecules make them move. So the movement, the heat, is transferred.)
Heat can also transfer through radiation. This is a fundamentally different mechanism than the other two. The long explanation is complicated, but basically this radiation follows the rules that light follows: it can move through a vacuum, it can travel long distances. etc. Think about your microwave - the microwaves themselves aren't "hot." The only time they change into heat is when they interact with your food inside the microwave. But they themselves are not heat energy. Radiation is closer to that.
Light is electromagnetic energy. (Which is also kinetic, if you're following along at home.) Electromagnetic waves are created from moving charges, which your kids don't need to know. But they do need to understand that it can travel without a medium, like through a vacuum. (By comparison, mechanical forms of energy could not.) The electromagnetic spectrum is a fascinating thing, but we're focused on visible light here. Confusingly, radiation and visible light are both electromagnetic energy transfers, but mostly at a different wavelength. Again, don't worry about teaching that part to the kids. Here's what they need to know: light is energy. It can travel through nothingness, like space.
Sound is a form of mechanical energy. It is the same kind of energy as a ball rolling, or an earthquake, or a raindrop falling. It happens to be vibrations, which travel in waves, but it is mechanical. There's nothing special about sound that makes it different from any other form of stuff moving. Now it just so happens that our ears sense vibrations in the air within certain frequencies, so we perceive it as different from other mechanical forces, like a snowball hitting the back of one's head. But it's the same form of energy. Use this framework of energy as you go through your various explorations of heat, light, and sound.
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