Curated OER
TE Activity: Hot Cans and Cold Cans
Middle schoolers work on problems in which they investigate conduction, convection, and radiation. They attempt to maintain the warmth in one can of soda while cooling the other as much as possible in a thirty minute period. They examine...
Curated OER
Heat Transfer
Eighth graders form teams. Students place a thermometer in ball of clay and place in an insulated cup filled with hot water and then another thermometer in a ball of clay in an insulated cup of cold water. Students record temperature...
Curated OER
temperature and the Scientific Method Lesson Plan
Sixth graders study heat, temperature, and heat transfer. Using probeware, the teacher demonstrates boiling points. Students participate in experiments and record the beginning and ending temperatures and mass of objects. After...
Curated OER
Animal Skin
Young scholars investigate the skin surface to body area ratios for different animals. In this seventh/eighth grade mathematics/science lesson plan, students explore heat transfer between an animal’s body and the environment. Using...
Curated OER
TE Activity: You're in Hot Water
Students study different ways of using solar energy. They design a solar water heater and determine how much water it can heat in a set amount of time. They examine how the heaters work by solar radiation and convection.
Curated OER
Bing! Bang! Boom!
Sixth graders investigate heat energy, conduction, convection, and radiation.
Curated OER
Solar Box Cooker
Students explore solar power. In this solar power instructional activity, students build simple solar cookers after they study convection, conduction, and radiation. Students transfer their knowledge of how the solar cooker works to...
Curated OER
Ice Melting
Pupils design investigations to test various materials to prevent heat gain in frozen water. The task assess students' knowledge of scientific inquiry including the following skills: observation, data collection, measurement, graphing,...
Curated OER
Driving Currents
Students conduct a variety of investigations to see how water, heat, and salinity affect the flow of the world's ocean currents,as well as, explore many factors that affect the flow of the world's ocean currents. They also describe in...
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Insulators
Students design and carry out an investigation to test which materials is the best insulator: they predict which way heat energy flows in a system and analyze the flow of energy in a system from one point to another and from one form to...
Pennsylvania Department of Education
Energy in Motion
Fifth graders explore energy transfer. In this thermal energy instructional activity, 5th graders stretch rubber bands several times and estimate the band's temperature change. Students identify this action as an example of thermal...
Curated OER
Latent Heat and Clouds
Students explore latent heat and how it relates to clouds in the atmosphere. For this earth science lesson students investigate how clouds are formed. Students examine clouds and the water cycle.
Curated OER
Energy Transfer
Students investigate the properties of heated air. They make predictions about what they think makes the wind blow on a worksheet, and conduct two experiments to demonstrate the properties of heated air. Students heat a bottle until a...
Curated OER
Thermal Energy Transfer - Conduction
Students examine how heat passes through a pane glass window. In this energy transfer lesson students complete a lab activity.
Curated OER
Maintaining Body Heat
Students observe and compare heat loss in various objects with surface area-to-volume ratios and transfer this comparison to the physical characteristics of animals in their environment. In small groups they conduct an experiment...
PBS
Insulation Station
It's all about the material. Learners experiment with different substances as they try to keep an ice cube from melting. They draw conclusions by answering a set of questions about the types and amount of material that had the best result.
Curated OER
What is the Best Insulator: Air, Styrofoam, Foil, or Cotton?
Students investigate the properties of insulators by attempting to keep a cup of water from freezing, and once it is frozen, to keep it from melting. They conduct the experiment, record and analyze the results, and answer discussion...
Curated OER
The Great Ocean Conveyor
Young scholars investigate water density. In this water density instructional activity, students conduct an experiment with food coloring, water and salt to see how the salt effects bodies of water.
Curated OER
Condensation Lab
Students investigate condensation in the lab. In this chemistry lesson plan, students explain molecular motion during phase changes. They relate this observation to Earth's weather conditions.
Curated OER
Science: Hurricanes As Heat Engines
Young scholars conduct Internet research to track the path of Hurricane Rita. They record the sea surface temperature of the Gulf of Mexico during and after the hurricane and draw conclusions about how hurricanes extract heat energy...
Curated OER
Maintaining Body Heat
Students observe and compare heat loss in different objects with surface-to-volume ratios. They transfer this comparison to the physical characteristics of animals in their environment. They focus on how whales maintain their body heat.
Discovery Education
It's Getting Hot in Here
Class members engage in a STEM experiment and investigate how materials affect heating in a house by creating models of houses and using different top surface materials. They record the temperature inside the models and consider what the...
Curated OER
Convection Currents
Students explain and understand the circulation of air in the atmosphere. They identify that energy can be carried from one place to another by heat flow or by waves, including water, light and sound waves, or by moving objects. ...
Curated OER
Window Treatments for Energy Savings
Students investigate energy-saving window treatments. In this environmental lesson plan, students research how energy-saving windows work by conducting an experiment using a thermometer and graphing data. Students identify why...