Curated OER
Three Methods of Heat Transfer
Students participate in a variety of experiments designed to illustrate types of heat transfer including conduction, convection and radiation. They complete worksheets as an assessment of the experiments.
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...
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Solar Kit Lesson #7 Positioning Solar Panels I: Explorations with Tracking
Students track and record data on the Sun's position in the sky and on the output of a solar panel tracking the Sun. On a second day, students graph and analyze the data to identify relationships between (1) the time of day, (2) the...
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Heat Transfer
Students examine heat transfer using energy efficient houses. In this heat transfer lesson plan students calculate the heat that is transferred between a system and its surroundings.
Curated OER
Snow Goggles And Limiting Sunlight
Students investigate the effects of light radiation on the human eyes. They construct a pair of snow goggles that are used to see how a filter can protect the eyes from radiation. Then students explain how the scientific method can be...
Curated OER
It's Gettin' Hot In Here, So Transfer Energy
Students study the means by which energy is transferred from the sun through the Earth's atmosphere. They examine radiation, conduction, and convection. They complete a lab to determine how the different transfers affect the atmosphere...
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Radiation Budget Lesson: Exploring Albedo
Students experiment with sunlight and temperature. They study the definition of albedo, or the percentage of incoming sunlight that is reflected, rather than absorbed.
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Discovering The Power Of Sunlight
Young scholars participate in a lesson that looks at the potential for energy from sunlight. Students conduct research from a variety of resources and construct an object that is used to measure the energy of sunlight and calculate the...
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Chemical Sleuthing
Students engage in a activity which includes flame tests and the construction of a simple diffraction spectrograph with which to measure sodium ion emissions. They use the Bragg equation to compute the wavelength of the line spectra...
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Simulating the Greenhouse Effect in a Terrarium
Students identify what factors effect global warming and how the greenhouse effect occurs. In this environmental lesson students view videos then complete an experiment using a terrarium to observe greenhouse gas.
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UV Rays, sunscreen effectiveness
Young scholars identify and define that invisible UV rays can be harmful. Then they explore the effects of UV radiation on objects that react UV rays and what products are most effective in blocking UV rays. Students also make...
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Remote Sensing and Landsat Satellite Imagery
Students comprehend how satellites use remote sensing to produce images. They use supervised classification with Landsat images. Students recognize that the earth's surface has different basic land surfaces that reflect/emit different...
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Melting the Ice: Energy Transfer
Students study thermal energy and energy transfer to sea ice processes. For this energy transfer lesson, students make their own ice cream and discuss energy transfer and thermal energy. Students view a radiation overhead and its role in...
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Measuring the Speed of Light
High schoolers explore physics by completing measurement problems in class. In this speed of light lesson, students discuss the importance of knowing the speed of light and how it affects many aspects of human life on Earth. High...
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Heat Absorption and Radiation
Students experiment with the concepts of absorption and reflection of radiant energy.
Curated OER
What's it Like Inside the Sun?
Students perform experiment in which they model convection as it occurs in our Sun. They also explain that convection acts where the effect of gravity and heat are present (low density fluids can rise and cool, and high density fluids...
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Check Out Lights and Shields with Beads
Students explore Ultraviolet detecting beads and conduct several investigations with them. For this investigative lesson students participate in an experiment to see the harmful effects of UV light and discuss their findings.
Curated OER
Star Wars Activity
Students investigate radiant energy by completing discrepant events and identify various temperature changes through absorption and how radiant energy can be used for solar panels. They experiment with different color fabrics in order...
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Canned Heat
Students demonstrate that light and dark colored objects absorb the sun's radiation at different rates. They experiment with the temperature change of water in two locations and discuss the results.
Curated OER
The Measurement of All Things: Atmospheric Detectives
Students identify the characteristics of aerosols. Using remote sensing, they participate in an experiment in which they determine how the sun's radiation and elements in the atmosphere interact with one another. They also research the...
Curated OER
What the Sun Can Do
Students develop and test a unique, personally-relevant hypothesis about the consequences of exposure to UV radiation based units on a living organism, common baker's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae).
Colorado State University
Why Does it Get Colder on a Clear Night than a Cloudy Night?
Clouds are nature's insulator! A lab investigation asks learners to use an infrared thermometer to measure differences in infrared temperatures. They find that pointing the thermometer at a cloud has a much different result than pointing...
Colorado State University
What Does Color Have to Do with Cooling?
Study the rate of cooling for objects of different colors. Learners focus on the reflection and absorption of infrared light. Your classes may be surprised to learn objects that heat the slowest also cool the slowest.
NASA
Analyzing Tiny Samples Using a Search for the Beginning Mass Spectrometry
Teach the basics of mass spectrometry with a hands-on lesson. The fourth in a series of six lessons explores how mass spectrometry measures the ionic composition of an element. Learners then compare and contrast relative abundance and...