Activities
Energy
Transformations
Potential
and Kinetic Energy
Heat
Transfer
Energy transfers and transformations are more than the stuff of textbooks.
Here’s a crop of hands-on activities that will have your students observing,
experiencing, and building an understanding of how energy moves and changes
forms. The activities take from one to two class periods to complete. We’ve
sorted them into three content categories, so select the ones that correspond
to your learning goals and let the energy conversions begin!
Tesla coil? Check. Radiometer? Check. Plasma ball? Right here. Have all the
physics gadgets a teacher could want? Here’s a chance to use some of them to
introduce your students to a variety of energy transformation scenarios. This
lesson plan sketches out a handful of in-class demonstrations that illustrate
energy conversions and feature a variety of energy forms. Keep your students'
heads in the learning game by posing the questions that pepper the lesson’s
procedure section. Answers are not included, so think about the questions and
research them if necessary before diving into the demos. One assessment idea is
given; another option is to ask students to complete the last column of the KWL
chart from the beginning of the lesson. Note that the term energy transfer here
refers to what we are calling energy transformation. MSP full record
This teaching aid provides multiple parts that support students learning about
potential and kinetic energy. One part is a segment of the television program
Zoom, in which two young children build and demonstrate a spool racer. A goal
of the video is to illustrate how the potential energy of a stretched rubber
band is released as kinetic energy when the racer careens across the table.
Since the words potential and kinetic energy are never mentioned, you may
decide to hold off introducing the terms until the students answer the question
"What makes the spool racer go?" Because the segment is just under 2.5 minutes
and can be viewed separately, you have a lot of flexibility in how you use this
resource. If your students are going to build spool racers, they can view the
video to see how to make them. If the students are not going to construct the
racers, they can consider what happens in the video to answer the discussion
questions. The second part is three paragraphs of background information that
are appropriate for either you or your students. The information contains
real-world examples of potential and kinetic energy. If the students are doing
this as a discovery activity, you will want to have them read this section
after they are done with the spool racer. Even though the children in the video
look to be in elementary school, the discussion questions and the activity are
very appropriate for middle school students. A link to the related standards is
provided. MSP full record
Students learn about potential and kinetic energy firsthand in this design
challenge. The challenge is two-tiered: Students design a toy that can propel a
ball first a short and then a longer distance. (Consider converting the
distances so that they are both in the metric system.) In between the two
tasks, the teacher demonstrates and facilitates a discussion about the
conservation of energy. The packet offers substantial teacher support material,
including materials lists, teaching points and related questions to ask
students about the energy concepts involved in their designs, and lists of
design constraints to share with students. Although grades 3-6 are the target
audience, the challenge’s content aligns well with the national physical
science standards for grades 5-8. Note that gravitational and elastic potential
energy—the forms of potential energy addressed here—are not the only kinds of
potential energy. MSP full record
 |
Graphic courtesy of the National Center for
Atmospheric Research. |
Need some experience doing quantitative science experiments? In these
activities, students take measurements, graph the results, and draw
conclusions. They even generalize their results to real-world applications!
After explaining the differences between conduction, convection, and radiation,
this teacher guide offers activities in which the students learn first-hand the
relationship between the color or texture of an object and its ability to
absorb energy. Students first measure, at one-minute intervals for ten minutes,
the temperature of three materials (water, light soil, and dark soil, or
materials chosen by the teacher or students) heated by a reflector lamp. The
students also measure the temperature of the three materials as they cool for
ten minutes. Students consider that the Earth is made of a variety of materials
that absorb heat unevenly. What impact do you think this has on the Earth’s
atmosphere? Good way to link energy transfer to weather and climate, isn’t it?
MSP full record
We didn’t select this heat conduction activity because it is new and different.
That said, this version did catch our eye for a number of reasons: (1) The
student activity sheet is written clearly, and the activity is well-designed;
(2) Short answer and multiple choice assessment questions and answers are
included; and (3) The producers of the lesson plan, the Texas State Energy
Conservation Office, have set the activity in a real-world context--that of
home insulation. A required
reading from the same site is the basis for some of the assessment
questions, a few of which are specific to Texas. The teacher instructions come
first in the packet, so don’t be confused if you see assessment answers before
spotting the questions. MSP full record
With the most basic of equipment (a coin, a bottle, and water or oil) and this
demonstration, you can get students thinking about the transfer of heat and the
cascading effects of that transfer. The activity, part of the well-known
Whelmers set, comes with all the teacher supports you’d expect, including
presentation notes, standards correlations, an explanation of the
demonstration’s science content, and an assessment idea. The demo calls on
students to consider the conduction of heat, the chain of energy conversions
leading up to the heat transfer, and the relationship between the temperature
and pressure of a gas. MSP full record
![[back to top]](/images/epubs/arrow_up.gif)
Back to top
|
Copyright
March 2005 — The Ohio State University. This material is based upon work
supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0424671. Any
opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this
material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of
the National Science Foundation.
|
|
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons License.
|
|