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Classroom Resources || Professional Resources || Illinois Schools || Education Data

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Sample Units Designs

Designing Units Around Math and Science Topics

University of Illinois at Chicago College of Education

ED312, Spring 1995; Professor Maria Varelas

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Lesson by Debbie Lindsay, Jennifer O'Connor, and Bridget Stone

Heat, Light & Sound

Lesson for:



1st through 8th grades.



Project description:



Heat

Heat, in our opinion, has always been a confusing, somewhat difficult form of energy to comprehend, especially for young students. Therefore, we belive that heat should be explained in simple terms, such as a simple activity. An activity which would make the explanation of heat quite simple and understandable is the "rubbing of hands" activity. For this activity, students slowly rub their hands against one another to feel the warmth the friction that is created. Then, as they rub their hands faster, they begin to feel more heat. Through this simple, hands-on, "no materials needed", activity, students can actually see and understand what heat is defined as. The movement of their hands against one another shows them that 1) their hands are moving so it is a form of energy and 2) that heat is really the vibration of particles of matter (vibration= rubbing of hands, particles= hand molecules, and matter= hands ). The more heat an energy matter has, the faster the particles are moving.

A second important concept behind heat is how heat travels through different matter. This is another idea which intrigues students. There are many activities which can be done in the classroom to demonstrate how heat travels through different types of matter. To introduce students to the idea of conduction (the way heat moves through solids), a good idea would be to discuss a hot bowl of soup and a spoon. The soup is warm and so contains a lot of fast particles. The spoon is cold, containing many slow particles.

When the spoon enters the soup, the spoon is bombarded by many fast particles. When the spoon is picked up later, it is hot. By this, the students can see that the heat travels up through the spoon (solid matter). However, the speed of travel in solids is different. Insulators, such as pizza boxes, cases heat to not easily move because the particles inside the matter are spaced apart. Conductors, such as pans, allows heat to easily move because the particles are close together. A great project for students would be to have them make lists of all of the insulators or conductors used in the past week. By this, they could easily practice using insulators/conductors, and get familiar with them, as well as the way heat travels through solids. A group activity for students to do, under supervision, would be to give them different materials and time how long it takes for them to heat up. Now, the discussion of heat traveling through liquids and gases (convection) could be easily demonstrated by thinking about how a single radiator heats up an entire room. At this point, many students will get confused between heat and heated air. The way heat travels in liquids and gases, as well as solids, is from one place to another. The radiator is releasing warm air, which is pushing the cold air to the floor. This is convection.

At this time, heated air should be introduced to clear up the confusion between heat and heated air. A good activity would be to have students imagine they were in a hot-air balloon, ask them how it moves? They will tell you that a fire is used under the balloon. This is correct, because expansion causes rising so they are using the hot air from the fire to rise. Then, ask them how they will come back to the ground. A correct response would be to turn off the fire. This is showing that heat is no longer entering the balloon and it begins to settle to the ground.

The final idea behind heat is the heat from the sun. Brainstorm with students about standing in the sun on a cold day. They'll respond that they get warm. This is the opportunity to explain radiation (movement of heat energy in waves). The sun is giving off light, as well as other waves, which turns into heat when it strikes matter, such as a person getting warm from standing in the sunlight.

An important topic to include in the discussion of heat from the sun, as an extension, would be global warming. Global warming is a very important environmental issue students should be aware of, since its effects will begin to show in the years 2000 - 2050. Basically, global warming is a phenomenon in which heat is trapped in the atmosphere which then keeps the earth and air just above warm. A key fact to share with students is that without global warming, we could not survive on a cold earth. This discussion could proceed with imagining what would happen if our earth keeps getting warmer (answers such as changes in seasons), and also what people could do to halt global warming (answers such as reforestation).

Lastly, there are many books available on heat and activities regarding heat. There are also field trips to take children on such as a greenhouse or a solar-heated home. Students get better understanding of difficult concepts by getting hands-on learning. This also allows easier assessment for the teacher to observe how involved students become, and what they are critically thinking about.



Light

When talking about light, there are many different topics that involve it. The main idea behind light is that without light we cannot see. This would be a good question to pose to the children, what would happen if there was no light. Of course, in different grades you will get varied answers ranging from, it would be dark all of the time, to the plants would not grow and so on. It is also important for the children to understand that light is also a form of energy. You could implement this idea by asking how one feels after they stand in the sun for a long period of time or if you put your hand close to a light bulb, what do you feel? Of course, in this instance, light transforms to heat energy but you could also raise the topic of solar energy. This is a major focus when talking about heat, light and sound and should be discussed in depth. If your school has the resources,you might be able to get your class into the National Geographic Society Kids Network which gathers students in classrooms from all over the country and world. These classrooms are then divided into teams and the teams then perform the same type of experiments and send the data to the team center for collection and further analysis. They are also activities and experiments that the classes perform on their own and do not send to the team. All of the experiments are directly related to solar energy and show how to collect it and use it in different ways. This is a very important topic in that it has a direct environmental importance that can last beyond the unit.

Another important topic of light is the way it travels and what it travels through. All things can be divided into three different types



1. transparent,
2. translucent and
3. opaque.



Transparent objects are those that we can see through such as glass, water, and air. Translucent things are that we cannot see clearly through but that we can see some of the light. Some examples are:



1. paper,
2. cloth and
3. frosted glass.

Opaque things are things that we cannot see anything through, light cannot pass through opaque things at all. An example of this is a brick wall, a body or any solid matter. When talking about this, you can do an activity using a shadow show. The students should be familiar with shadows and this can lead to discussions on why the shadow forms. Also, you can have the students name different objects and if they are opaque, transparent or translucent. If there is any question, you can perform an experiment and test it out to see. For example if someone said the newspaper is opaque, and someone else disagreed, have the student bring a newspaper to class and do an experiment to test it. This also can be done for anything on the list so that the students can get a better understanding of the terms.

The way light travels is important. Light travels in waves through objects or at objects. This is extremely difficult for students to understand because it is very hard to show them an actual light wave. The shadow experiment is a good activity here because when you do a shadow against a wall, the shadow outline is almost perfect. The light waves do not blur or scatter (unless something is in its way), they travel in straight lines. The light traveled straight until it hit the wall, then it was reflected by the wall, allowing us to see it. A good example of what a light wave looks like is to drop something in a pool or glass of water. The waves scatter around the dropped object in a circular fashion and move directly away from it until they hit something or die out.

When talking about light, you must also talk about reflected and refracted light. These two are difficult terms for children to understand. An activity to show how this works is to take a clear glass or clear plastic cup and fill it 3/4 full with water. Insert any object into the water like a spoon, pen or straw. Have the students look at the side of glass. How does the straw appear? It appears bent. It looks as though the straw or pen entered the water on top in one place and went through the water at another. This is refraction, when light bends because it is passed through different kinds of matter. Ask the students if they have noticed this while in a swimming pool or in a bath. A mirror is a good example of reflection off of a smooth surface. However, light can be reflected off of rough surfaces as well. For example, the paper you are looking at is a rough surface. You are seeing the light bounce off of the rough surface of the paper. The reason why things reflect differently is due to their surface and how the light bounces off. This is easily shown in the following diagram. Another important thing I think you should mention that the children see or use regularly, is reflective material. They see the reflective paint on the streets to show the division of lanes, the safety belts worn by patrol people and the reflectors on their bikes. I think it is a good idea to bring the material to life for the children so that they better understand it.

You will most likely also have someone who wears glasses in your classroom. This means that they look through lenses, but not every lens is the same. This would be a good way to introduce convex and concave lenses. You could also ask if anyone has taken a picture, did the object look the same through the lens? Why? Convex lenses are lenses that are thick in the middle and thing at the ends. Convex lenses magnify (ex. a magnifying glass). Concave lenses are thick at the ends and thin in the middle, they reduce (ex. cameras). One easy activity to do to show the children a simple convex lens is to make a magnifying glass. To do this, you need poster board or card board, about 2" by 2". Cut a center out of it and apply transparent tape over the center. Then take a drop or two of water, place it on the the center on the tape. Look through the center at a piece of writing, a book, a text or newspaper. This "magnifying glass" should magnify the print, maybe not too much, but it should be noticeable.

The one topic that the children will probably love the most is light and color. You can talk about rainbows (a spectrum), white light, and the different colors and how we see these things. There are many activities to do. One is taking a blank sheet of paper, a prism and sitting by the window on a sunny day. Have the room dark except for the one window. Place the prism in the sunlight, adjust it and the paper until you can see the spectrum and have the students draw what they see. They have just seen a rainbow. Rainbows are formed when raindrops refract sunlight and then send the color to our eyes. It is also important to talk about how we see colors. For example, we see an object as black because it absorbs all the color and we see an object as white because none of the color is absorbed by an object. To show how different colors are seen by our eyes, you can make spin dials with different colors and patterns and spin them around a pencil. When you have a dial with all the colors on it, you should see white as it is spinning. A dial with blue and yellow should show green when it spins. This can be done with all color combinations. Another activity to do is to take colored cellophane, rings from a six-pack of soda, and tape or staples. Have the students make their own colored glasses. Have them look at different colors of paper through the glasses and ask them what they see. They may be able to tell what the color of the paper is, but the important aspect here is that it is not the pure shade. Have a discussion about the effects of the different colored glasses on their vision of different colors.

All of the main ideas are important and should be touched on. It is also important to consider that a unit on heat, light and sound can lead into different topics. For example, with a unit on light you can talk about:



1. division and eyes, color blindness and vision problems,
2. 1ight and motion (using solar energy),
3. 1ight and heat (solar energy),
4. electricity and artificially formed light.



Most importantly, activities should definitely be used to ensure that the students can get a better understanding of a difficult topic.

Sound

When teaching sound to children, there are several key ideas that should be focused on. First, students should know that sound is caused by a vibration. This travels in waves through a medium. The vibration is passed on from molecule to molecule. For example, the initial vibration causes the molecules to move and bump into other molecules. Two models that could help students visualize this are a wave pool and dominoes.

The fact that sound needs a medium to travel through is another key idea for children in elementary school. Sound cannot travel through empty space; sound needs molecules to collide with each other in order for it to travel. The following is an experiment designed to show this.However it is difficult to get to work properly. Make sure to try it at home and work out problems.

Get a clean glass jar with a cork. Suspend a small bell on a string from the core. Make sure that the bell can ring when you shake the jar. However, it should not hit the sides when shook. Place some paper in the jar and set it on fire. Quickly cork the jar. After the jar cools, shake the jar. You should not be able to hear the bell. Then open the jar to let air in. Close the jar and shake it. Now you should clearly hear the bell ring. What happened? When the paper burned in the closed jar, it used up all the air. Therefore, there were no molecules to collide and carry the sound. When the jar was opened, air molecules entered the jar. Then, there are molecules to collide and carry the vibration.

Another key idea is that sound travels differently in various mediums. For example, sound will travel farther in solids or liquids than in air. This is because molecules are closer together in solids and liquids than in air. Therefore, the molecules will collide more and carry the vibration. There are many activities that can be done to show this. Many are very simple and do not require a great deal of materials. They can be found in the books listed. The following describes the activities done in class.





1. This activity requires the students to work in pairs. First have one person scratch a table lightly. Can the other partner hear the sound from across the table? Now the partner that is listening should place their ear against the table. Can they hear the sound now? Is it clearer? Ask the students why this happens.
2. This activity uses the string telephone. To make the string telephone, poke a small hole in the bottom of two cans or cups. Then, connect the cups by threading string through the holes. Now, tell the students to spread apart and talk to each other through the cups. They should be able to clearly hear each other. There are several factors that influence how well the phone works. It will not work if the string is not puffed taut or if anything is touching the string. However, it may best not to tell the students. Have them explore and experiment with the phones. Then, ask them what happened and why.

Students also should be aware that sound travels slower than light in air. They can discuss instances in which they saw something before they heard it. A common example is seeing the lightning before hearing the thunder. A good experiment would be to have them pay attention the next time there is a thunderstorm. Ask them to count the time between seeing the lightning and hearing the thunder. Compare class' results and look for similarities or differences. Another example occurs when you are watching a live performance on TV. The singer's lip movements do not seem to match the sound ask the students why.

It is important not tojust tell the students everything. For this topic, it may be better to provide them with basic knowledge. Then, ask them questions that will guide them to the other concepts. For example, tell the students how sound travels (vibration causing molecules to collide). Then, perform the activity with the scratching on the table. Ask them why this happens, instead of just telling them, this happens because the molecules are closer together in a solid.

Finally, musical instruments provide good discussions about sound. They can compare and contrast the sounds of different instruments and notes. The students can listen for changes in tone and pith. Using what they know, the students can discuss possible causes for differences in tones and pitch. This will help them see the effect of various factors on sound. For example, a piccolo has a higher pitch than a flute because the column of vibrating air is smaller. In a piano, a thicker string results in a lower pitch.

Students can also classify sounds they hear around them. They can classify them on the basis of loudness, pitch, tone, pleasantness or other characteristics they decide on. Then, they can discuss what might cause those differences.

There are many ways of assessing students' understanding of this area. Much assessment will take place during the activities and discussions. The students' responses will provide information on their level of understanding. For example, if a student is able to state why a smaller air column results in a higher pitch in a piccolo, the student is showing understanding of that concept. However, if a student cannot tell why the sound is clearer through a table, that student is missing a key idea.

Student understanding could also be assessed in short answer questions that have the student apply their learned knowledge to different yet somewhat similar situations. For example, ask the students what would happen if two or three more phones were added or if the string was touching something else. Another good application for assessment would be to provide a list of five materials and ask them to rate them according to how well sound could travel through them. They should explain their choices.



Light Bibliography

The following books provide information and activities relating to light, colors, waves, seeing, reflections, refraction, etc These books are geared for 1st through 8th grades.

Anderson, L..W. Light and Color. Raintree Childrens Books. Milwaukee. 1978.

Cooper, Jason. Light: Science Secrets. The Rourke Corporation, Inc. Florida. l992.

Glover,David. SoundandLight. Kingfisher Books. NewYork. 1993.

Parker, Steve. The Marshall Cavendish Science Project Book of Light. Marshall Cavendish Corporation. New York. 1986.

Rowe,Julian and Molly Perham. Colorful Light. Childrens Press. Chicago. 1993.

Williams, John. Projects with Color and Light. Gareth Stevens Children's Books. Milwaukee. 1992.

The following books provide activities and worksheets relating to different aspects of heat, light and sound that may be reproduced for worksheets or transparencies. Cohen, Laura. Heat, Light, and Sound. Primarv Grades. Frank Schaffer Publications, Inc. California. 1991.

Ortleb, Edward and others. Heat, Light, and Sound, 1- 3. Milliken Publishing Company. Missouri. 1988.

Note: These were purchased at a teachers resource store.

The following book provides different activities you can do using everyday materials. The activities vary and relate to many different science topics.

Mandell, Muriel. Simple Science Experiments With Evervday Materials. Sterling Publishing Co., Inc. New York. 1990.

The following book shows different activities one can do relating to mirrors. It provides questions relating to everyday life.

Simon, Seymour. Mirror Magic. Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books. New York. 1980.

The following book looks at different colors we may see in everyday things.

Goennel, Heidi. Colors. Little, Brown and Company. Boston. 1990.

Heat Bibliography

The following books will provide useful information and activities relating to heat, light, and sound, for 1st through 8th grades. Arnold, C. Sun Fun. Watts, New York: 1981.

Cobb and Darling. Bet You Can't. Shepard Books. NewYork. 1980.

Gateways to Science. Teachers Edition 4. McGraw-Hill Comp. 1985.

Holt Science. Teachers Edition 3. Holt, Reinhart, Winston Publ. 1986.

Johnson, R. The Greenhouse Effect. LernerPubl. Minnesota. 1990.

Kettelkamp, L. Magic of Sound. Morrow Comp. New York. 1982.

SilverBurdett. Science. Teachers Edition 4. Burdett Comp. New Jersey. 1984

Spetgang and Wells. Children's Solar Energy Book. Sterling Publ. New York. 1982.

Steele, P. Heatwave. Watts. New York. 1981.

Webb, Angela. Sound. Watts.NewYork. 1988.

General Resources

These books are children's books that can be found at a local library. They contain activities and experiments suitable for elementary school children.

Brockel, Ray. Experiments With Light. Children's Press. Chicago, 1986.

Cash, Terry. Fun With Science:Sound. Warwick Press. New York, 1989.

Lyon, Sue. The Marshall Cavendish Guide to Projects and Experiments: Light and Sound. Marshall Cavendish Corporation. New York, 1988.

Mandell, Muriel. Physics Experiments for Children. Sterling Publications Co. Toronto, 1959.

These books are textbooks that are designed for use in science methods classes. They contain factual information about a variety of science topics including heat, light and sound. They provide activities to be used in the classroom as well. They are designed for an adult audience.

Abruscato, Joseph. Teaching Children Science. Allyn and Bacon. Boston,1992.

Gega, Peter C. Concepts and Experiments in Elementary School Science. Macmillan. New York, 1991.

Jarvis, Tina. Children and Primary Science. Cassell Educational Ltd. London, 1991.

Podendorf, Illa. Sounds All About. Childrens Press. Chicago, 1970.

This book is good for young children. It talks about the sounds that are common all around us. It would be a good place to start a lesson on sound. Ask the students what causes these sounds.

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