Fossil FuelsTwo Weeks
/ ScienceLesson Plan
Teacher:
6th Grade Science / Grade:
6th Grade Science
Lesson Title:
From Dinosaurs to Electricity – Fossil Fuels
STRANDS
Energy
Forces in Nature
LESSON OVERVIEW / Summary of the task, challenge, investigation, career-related scenario, problem, or community link.
During this unit students will learn to distinguish among different types of potential energies and recognize energy transformations. Students will use the conservation-of-energy law to solve problems and account for the loss of useful energy in the production of electricity. Students will also look at alternatives to fossil fuels. Cross-curricular connections to math include calculations of percentages. Connections to social studies include looking at the way societies use resources and how they value and compete for resources. Connections to ELA include analysis of nonfiction texts related to energy production and use. Career connections include careers in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and science.
MOTIVATOR / Hook for the week unit or supplemental resources used throughout the week. (PBL scenarios, video clips, websites, literature)
The science hook for this unit is a demonstration of lighting a lamp using a hand-cranked generator. Students will be able to feel how much more force is needed to turn the hand crank in a high-load circuit versus a low-load one.
The unit hook is provided by the video Formation of Fossil Fuels at Preview the video to ensure the link still valid and safe prior to showing it in class. The same video is available on GaggleTube.
DAY /
Objectives
(I can….) /Materials & Resources
/Instructional Procedures
/ DifferentiatedInstruction /
Assessment
1 / -I can define words that relate to the basics of power transmission-I can determine if a substance is an insulator or a conductor using electric current / Exit Ticket:
iPad
Bell Work and Classwork:
iPads
Lab:
-Pencils
-circuit kits with battery, wires, bulbs, Lab Quests, probes and resistors
NOTE – the circuits in this lab must contain a resistor or lamp in series with the pencil components. / Essential Question:
What are the basic properties of matter that allow us to transmit power from fossil fuel plants to our homes? / Remediation:
-Provide written definitions.
-Provide additional explanation of vocabulary and labs.
-Reduce the closing written assignment.
Enrichment:
- Research to find out what pencil lead is made of and if it has properties similar to semiconductors. / Formative Assessment:
Bell Work
Lab
Exit
Homework
Electricity – Moving Energy Over Long Distances
Bell Work
In iPad journals students willexplain what causes electric charges to move and what happens to them in wires.
Link to Project
Energy from coal in our region is converted to electricity at power plants. The energy is brought to us as electricity. We begin connecting previous learning on electricity to the use of fossil fuels to produce electricity with this lesson.
Set
Ask the class: We learned that when an electrical device is grounded, the ground wire carries electrons into the earth – the literal ground. We also learned that lightning – a very large electrical current – travels through the air. Why can’t we use the ground or the air (instead of expensive wires) to transmit electricity from a power plant? The answers and discussion should lead to the ideas of conductors, insulators and resistance/resistivity.
Direct Instruction
Vocabulary Review
Fossil Fuel – nonrenewable energy source – coal, natural gas, oil
Insulator – substance that does not easily allow electrons to pass through it.
Conductor – substance that readily allows electrons to pass through it.
Current – moving electric charge (charge per time)
Circuit – a closed path through which electrons can flow
Resistance – property of matter that inhibits electrical current
Lab –Insulators versus Conductors on One Object
Give lab each group a pencil and ask them to determine which components are conductors and insulators. Each group has access to resistors, wires, a D-cell, a 3 V lamp, a Lab Quest, voltage probe and current probe. SAFETY NOTE – All test circuits must include a 10-ohm resistor or a lamp in series with the tested object.
Students must submit evidence that the components are conductors or insulators.
Expected results: Insulators include the eraser, paint on the shaft and exposed wood where sharpened. Conductors include the metal eraser barrel and the pencil lead.
Post-Lab Questioning
Review lab results and ask students: Can we make power lines out of pencil lead? Should we make power lines out of pencil lead? (Demo – pencil lead will burn/smoke if too much voltage is applied – this is true of power lines as well, but they will carry a lot more current than pencil lead before they break down.
Discuss energy conversion in power lines. We convert fossil fuel to electricity, but we lose some of that electrical power simply because we have to transmit over wires. The wires are conductors, but have resistance, like the pencil lead, and heat up. When fossil fuels are burned, an energy transformation takes place – chemical potential energy to thermal energy. Eventually, the thermal energy is transformed to electrical. And in the transmission wires, some of the electrical energy is transformed into heat (due to resistance) and is can longer be used.
Electronic Exit Ticket
Students will write a paragraph explaining why power lines are made of metal instead of wood or pencil lead. They should use the terms conductor, insulator, resistance and energy transformation.
Homework
Students will design an experiment – but not do the experiment – to discover the maximum current a pencil lead can carry. Students will submit their experiments to Gaggle.
2 / -I can define resistanceand resistivity
-I can explainwhy resistance falls when diameter of a conductor increases / Bell Work:
iPad
Exit Ticket:
iPad
Demo Lab:
Pencil Lead
Wire
Batteries
Lab Quest
Probes
Set:
iPads
Apple TV / Essential Question:
What is resistance and how can you change it? / Remediation:
-Provide written definitions
-Provide comparison of water flow to electric current to help explain resistance. Present flow through narrow and wide channels, long and short channels.
Enrichment:
- Explain how a fuse works. Does it have more or less resistance than the rest of the circuit? / Formative Assessment:
Bell Work
Application
Homework
Bell Work
Students will discuss the experiments they designed for homework and will come up with one design per lab group, which will be used during the Set.
Link to Project
Energy transformation related to electricity and fossil fuels is the main idea of this unit. Today’s class will demonstrate how resistivity/resistance affects heat formation in wires (or other conductive objects), which can affect fossil fuel consumption.
Set
Discussion of Homework
- Select one group to present their lab idea – it must contain a clear procedure and clear variables.
- Select another group.
Set Demo
Place a pencil lead in a circuit and increase the current until the sample just begins to smoke. Allow students, using the vocabulary from yesterday, explain what happened.
Place two pencil leads side by side in the circuit and apply the same current. The lead will not smoke – it carries the current with no problem. Ask the students why this occurred? The discussion should lead into direct instruction.
Direct Instruction
Vocabulary
Voltage – force per unit charge
Resistance – quality of wires that take energy away from current.
Resistivity – property of materials that opposes current
Energy Transformation – when one type of energy becomes another type
Ohm – unit of electrical resistance
Direct Current – electric current that flows in one direction
Demo/Discussion Points
- Diameter of “pencil lead wire” increased when second lead was added to first – what is conclusion?
- Increase diameter again by adding two more pencil leads – maximum current will increase again
- DRAW CONCLUSION – Diameter causes resistance to fall.
- Show that increasing length causes resistance to rise.
- Show formula for resistance: R = rL/A where r is resistivity, L is length and A is area.
- Demonstrate the use of the formula using iPad app at PHET Colorado (HTML 5 version).
Give each lab group the following questions:
- What would happen if we increased the diameter of power transmission lines? What would happen to resistance and current in the wires? Would we use more or less fossil fuels?
- Could we replace metal wires with pencil lead? The answer is yes – give details on how to do this and how to control the unwanted energy transformation.
Students will explain the difference between resistance and resistivity. (Resistance is a property of structure, R = rL/A, and resistivity is a property of a material.) Students will submit answers to Gaggle.
Homework
Students will write a conclusion to the demo lab completed in class and submit it to Gaggle. The conclusion must cite evidence from the experiment. (The conclusion will clearly state how resistance decreases with increasing diameter and increases with increasing length.)
3 / -I can define conservation of energy
-I can demonstrate how conservation of energy works
-I can follow and account for energy through a series of transformations / Bell Work:
iPad
Set:
Simple circuit with bulb.
Direct Instruction:
Simple circuit with bulb / Essential Question:
How does the Conservation of Energy law work? / Remediation:
-Provide written definitions
-Provide flow diagram for conservation of energy discussion
Enrichment:
-Research and discuss conservation of energy on the sun. / Formative Assessment:
Bell Work
Lab
Homework
Bell Work
Students will consider the transformations of energies when electricity is used light a bulb. Students will summarize the energy transformations. Students will compare the transformations of energy when organisms consume producers and other consumers in an ecosystem and follow the energy through the eco system. Students will submit work to Gaggle.
Set
State that dinosaurs power the lights in the room and in our homes. Instruct students to look at their energy transformations to see where dinosaurs fit in.
Direct Instruction
Conservation of Energy means that the total amount of energy that goes into a system comes out of the system. Discuss examples that students worked on earlier:
Electric light (incandescent bulb is best to consider)
- Electric energy in (evidence is current and voltage)
- Light out (evidence we can see)
- Heat out (evidence we can feel)
- Evidence that electric energy was used is the voltage drop across the light. (Voltage, or electric potential, is energy per charge.)
- Conservation Law says that total in equal total out, no energy is lost
- Electric Energy in = Light output + Heat output
Volt – unit of electric potential
Potential Difference – difference in voltage between two points
Voltmeter – device for measuring voltage differences between two points (has two leads, not one)
Series Circuit – there is only one current path through the circuit and components occur one after another.
Thermal energy – heat energy due to motion of atoms and molecules
Application - Dinosaurs
Have students research in detail the origins of coal (or oil and gas) and construct a diagram of energy transformations using iPads. (Diagrams should start with the sun, go to plants, to dinosaurs, then to the potential energy of coal…)
Discuss the origin of coal (or oil and gas). Emphasize the now-extinct ecosystem that depended on the sun.
Close
Outline how energy flows from the sun, through an ecosystem and into chemical potential energy. Use 1 MJ from the sun, 100 KJ in producers, 1000 J in consumer, 10 J in secondary consumer and finally 1 J in coal. Obviously, these numbers do no demonstrate conservation of energy. Students will do this for homework.
Homework
Students will use the closing scenario and explain where the energy went in each step of the journey from the sun to coal and how much was lost. The numbers are consistent with known behavior of ecosystems. Most of the energy is lost as heat in the ecosystem. It is possible that advanced students may argue that ancient ecosystem were more efficient or less efficient. Just make sure students are able to defend their numbers for conservation of energy. Students will submit their analyses to Gaggle.
4 / - I can define potential energy, chemical potential energy and kinetic energy.
- I can identify energy transformations in a demo example and in a power plant. / Set:
iPad
Bell Work:
iPads
Set:
Match
Candle
Guest Speaker:
Power plant engineer that deals with fuel and/or power production. / Essential Question:
How does chemical potential energy become electrical energy? / Remediation:
-Provide written definitions and examples.
-Provide energy flow templates for demo and power plant.
Enrichment:
- Research the basics of potential energy in Uranium (nonrenewable, just like coal) and explain how it differs from the potential energy stored in fossil fuels. / Formative Assessment:
Bell Work
Homework
Bell Work
Have students in table groups develop make a slide-show summary (three or four slides) of energy conversion at a power plant. Groups will be selected later to present their findings.
Link to Project
Students will be required to present details of energy transformations at power plants in the project.
Set
Show a match and candle to the class. Energy is stored in both. Strike the match and light the candle. Stored energy is now being converted to heat and light.
Direct Instruction
Vocabulary
Potential Energy – stored energy
Chemical Potential Energy – energy stored in molecules (food and other nonfood carbon compounds, like coal, gas and oil)
Kinetic Energy – energy of motion
Conservation of Energy – energy input = energy output, no energy is lost or created
Combustion – conversion of carbon to energy and by products
Friction – resistance to motion that transforms kinetic to heat
Discussion
Show all the energy transformations that take place in order to light the candle. Start as far back in the chain as you want. Present part of each line and let students fill in the gaps.
- Light leaves sun
- Producers use light to make food (CPE)
- Human eats plant and converts food to (CPE)
- Human uses CPE to create KE when match is moved
- Friction converts KE to thermal energy
- Thermal energy ignites the chemicals (CPE) in match
- The flame converts wood in match (or material in wick) to heat and light.
Have a guest speaker from a power plant speak about the process of converting a fossil fuel (in this case, coal) to electricity. The speaker should focus on energy transformations.
Close
Review the major points of the talk with the students and bring out energy transformations and have students consider the law of conservation of energy.
Homework
Write a summary of the talk and create a detailed flow chart showing the energy transformations in the process of converting coal to electricity. Students should show where energy leaves the system and how much of the beginning energy contained in coal is present in the final electric current.
5 / - I can define gravitational potential energy, kinetic energy and elastic potential energy
- I cancalculate GPE and KE from measurements
- I can interpret lab measurements in terms of the Law of Conservation of Energy / Bell Work:
iPad
Set:
Hard rubber ball
Lab:
-Lab Quest
-2 Light gates per set up
-meter stick
-foam or soft material to catch ball
-scale / Essential Question
What evidence do we have that conservation of energy is true? / Remediation:
-Assist with calculations
-Provide diagram of energy transformations
-Group with peers capable of assisting with data collection
Enrichment:
-Have students determine how much energy the ball lost when it hit the table and rebounded / Formative Assessment:
Bell Work
Direct Instruction
Lab
Homework
Bell Work
Students will create a lab so that energy can be measured before and after energy is transformed from GPE to KE. Measurement of mass and height are required for GPE and measurement of mass and speed are required for KE. Give students this information and ask them to design a lab setup that allows these measurements. They must also identify the independent and dependent variables for the experiment. The experimental question can be summarized: Does changing the initial GPE of an object affect it’s final KE just before it hits the floor? Wording the question this way is consistent with the way we have been wording scientific questions and will allow students to come to the point quickly and focus on understanding the measurements.