Five E Lesson Plan Rationale
The Observing Heat Energy lesson plan introduced students to the three types of heat energy conduction, convection, and radiation. Students observed three demonstrations, created a device to keep an ice cube from melting, and explored each type of heat energy.
Impact:
At the beginning of the Observing Heat lesson plan, the students could demonstrate the movement of heat molecules, but they did not know that heat energy occurs in three ways conduction, convection, and radiation. The students learned as a substance takes in heat energy, its particles move faster and faster and bump into each other. Heat energy is passed along or conducted from molecule to molecule. In order for conduction to occur, two things with different temperature must be touching. The Observing Heat Energy lesson also taught convection heat energy is heat transfer in a gas or liquid by the circulation of currents from one region to another. When a gas or liquid is heated, the molecules move more rapidly and spread further apart. The students learned radiation is the method of heat transfer that occurs when the sun’s energy and any light, is transferred to the Earth. During the Observing Heat Energy Lesson, students learned how to create hypotheses and work together as a group to determine a solution to their hypotheses. Before the lesson, students did not know how heat energy transferred but at the end of the lesson all, the students could explain conduction, convection, and radiation energy and give examples.
Alignment:
Standard 3: Elementary teachers have a broad knowledge and understanding of the major concepts in science. Indicator 2: The Observing Heat Energy lesson introduced the physical science concept of heat energy to the students. The students were introduced, learned, and used proper science vocabulary for heat energy. Standard 7: Elementary teachers use developmentally appropriate strategies to design and deliver instruction in all areas of the elementary curriculum. Indicator 1: The Observing Heat Energy lesson aligns with the North Carolina Standard Course of Study for sixth grade. As I created this lesson, I referred to the NCSCOS web site to align it with the proper science objectives for sixth grade. Indicator 2: The Observing Heat Energy lesson primarily focuses on Science concepts but each lesson integrates Language Arts and Mathematics. Students worked on their problem solution writing skills through a letter. Students worked with rationale numbers and probabilities. Indicator 3: The lesson used the students’ prior of knowledge of energy and the movement of heat molecules. Students had to demonstrate the movement of heat molecules during the explanation of conduction and convection. Indicator 4: Throughout the Observing Heat Energy lesson, I implemented a variety of teaching and communication strategies for the engagement, exploration, explanation, and evaluation. Indicator 5: I assisted students in developing and practicing critical thinking and problem solving skills in the engagement, exploration, and explanation. Problem solving skills were very important in the exploration portion of the Five E lesson plan. Indicator 6: I modified the lesson prior to the second science block to meet each student’s needs. I had the opportunity to learn from my mistakes in the first science block and adjust my teaching strategy and assessments to improve the quality of the lesson. Indicator 7: Students worked in cooperative learning groups and pairs during the Observing Heat Energy lesson. This allowed me to assess the students’ ability to perform and learn using different teaching strategies. Standard 10: Teachers provide active inquiry experiences in the teaching of science by using various questioning skills and developing science processing skills (predicting, classifying, measuring, inferring, interpreting, analyzing, and synthesizing). The Observing Heat Energy lesson had students developing the following science process skills predicting, measuring, inferring, and analyzing. Throughout this lesson, students used these process skills multiple times. Standard 15: Elementary teachers encourage under represented groups to engage in the schooling process, especially math and science. Indicator 1: The Observing Heat Energy lesson used relevant and real-world applications that interested the classroom population. Each demonstration was related to a real-world application. The how to keep an ice cube from melting experiment encouraged under represented groups to assume leadership roles.
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