Both outdoor activities below have to do with energy. Some of your students have an enviable amount of it! These activities allow them to make curriculum-connected observations about energy, while expending some of their own in a way that is healthy and helpful for all involved.
Curriculum expectations are always based on the Ontario Ministry of Expectations. Many of the activities will reinforce, rather than teach, those expectations. As such, no assessment ideas or rubrics are included.
Understanding Matter and Energy: Properties Of And Changes In Matter
Overall Expectations:
- evaluate the social and environmental impacts of processes used to make everyday products;
- conduct investigations that explore the properties of matter and changes in matter;
- demonstrate an understanding of the properties of matter, changes of state, and physical and chemical change
Acting Out Changes In Matter*
Needed:
- whistle or chime to call students back together
- cones to mark out a boundary about 15x15 feet (5x5 meters) within a wider open space
- designate a boundary of a wider open space, like the soccer pitch
- lengths of rope or twine with the ends tied together to form a loop -one for every student
Get students outside to have enough room for this activity. It's a short one, maybe 15 minutes, so go outside early for recess to simplify transitions. Make sure that the expectations and boundaries are clear. Mark out the 15x15 foot boundary.
Start by reviewing the states of matter, while asking students to find examples. Solids have a fixed shape and are hard. Liquids can change shape, but always take up the same amount of space (same volume) as they flow in their container. Gases change shape and fills the space they are in (so change volume). Some students might mention plasma, the 4th state of matter.
Particles (molecules or atoms) are arranged differently in different states of matter. Tell students that they will model the particles in each of the three states of matter. They are each a molecule. Ask them to stand in the 15x15 foot space.
In a solid, the molecules are packed tight, held together by strong bonds. Ask students to model a solid by holding on the the loop of their neighbors holding their arms straight down arms, so that they are packed tight together in a group. The individuals can jiggle a little, the way molecules might, but the group maintains its shape.
As a solid gains energy, maybe due to warming, the molecules gain energy and can move around more. They are still bonded to each other, but more loosely. Ask students to model a liquid by spreading apart and moving around more, but always holding on to each other's loops with an outstretched arm. Fill up the space marked out by the cones. The bonds between molecules break and form continuously, so that the group stays together but can move and change shape, like a liquid.
As a liquid gains even more energy, by heating up more, the molecules gain enough energy to move completely apart and evaporate. Ask students to break all bonds with each other and move around the room, spreading out to fill a designated part of the schoolyard, maybe the soccer pitch.
Students can be asked to lose energy and become a liquid again (condensation), then a solid (freezing).
For younger students, simplify the language:
Stand up close together, arms linked. Stay still. You are not moving. You are stuck together, so you cannot change shape. I can see what shape you are. Which state are you? Solid.
You have a bit more energy. Now you can move around a little more. Walk around, but always stay touching at least one other person. So you can change shape but stay the same size. Which state are you? Liquid.
Now you have even more energy. You can now move around even more. Let go of each other. You now can change shape and size. Which state are you? Gas.
Understanding Earth and Space Systems: Conservation of Energy and Resources
Overall Expectations:
- analyze the immediate and long-term effects of energy and resource use on society and the environment, and evaluate options for conserving energy and resources;
- investigate energy transformation and conservation;
- demonstrate an understanding of the various forms and sources of energy and the ways in which energy can be transformed and conserved
Bounces and Forces*
This is a short outdoor activity that you could tack onto a recess or gym class. Students learn about the transfer of energy by bouncing a variety of balls with a purpose. Make clear the boundaries and expectations before going outside. Mark out the physical boundary even, or use the basketball court as a contained area. Review the learning goals before heading outside.
Materials
- selection of balls - basketball and tennis ball needed for the double ball bounce
- playground concrete, or gym space
Procedure
Motion and Force
Use the balls to learn about different kinds of motion. The students are instructed to move the balls in various ways, to make them move through various motions: spin, roll, slide, lift, fall, bounce, swing.
Discuss where the force comes from (the "push or pull") that made the ball do each motion.
(The students' hands provide the force to make the balls spin, roll or slide. The force of gravity pulls the ball down to make it fall or bounce. When the ball bounces, the floor pushes up on the ball to make it go up again. For the swing, the push and pull of an arm makes it move, and gravity is pulling down on the arm - you can feel it.)
Energy and Momentum
Bounce a basketball or a tennis ball. They both start with gravitational potential energy ("height energy") when they are held up high. This gravitational potential energy changes into motion energy as the ball falls. As the ball hits the ground the motion energy becomes elastic potential energy, as the energy is stored in the flexible material of the ball. This elastic energy is converted back to motion energy as the ball moves upwards again, which is converted back to all gravitational potential energy as the ball reaches the top of its bounce. The ball does not bounce as high each time, as energy is lost as heat as it rubs agains the air, and as the material of the ball flexes on the ground.
Now stack the tennis ball on top of the basketball and release them both at the same time. The tennis ball will fly really high (or sideways) as it bounces off the basketball. The basketball gives its energy to the tennis ball and so does not bounce up much at all.
The basketball is larger, so has more momentum (speed and mass combined) than the tennis ball as they fall. When the basketball bounces up it transfers its momentum to the tennis ball. As the total momentum is the same when it is transferred between the balls, but the tennis ball is a lot smaller than the basketball, the tennis ball will move a lot faster. So the tennis ball bounces back up with its own momentum plus the momentum of the basketball, which makes it move really fast. The basketball loses its momentum, so hardly moves upwards at all.
Students can experiment with more than two balls, balls of different sizes etc. They will run around a lot, and come back to the classroom with plenty of oxygen in the brain to make them both calm and curious!
*both lessons were found at http://www.ingridscience.ca
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