Curated OER
Teaching about Heat Budgets of Lakes
Students investigate how much energy is stored in lake water as latent heat, calculate how much latent heat is exchanged with the atmosphere, and consider the effects of heat gain and heat loss on the surrounding environment.
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How Hot Is It?
Discuss the difference between conduction, convection and radiation of thermal energy, and complete activities with your class by investigating the difference between temperature, thermal energy and the heat capacity of different materials.
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Make Your Own Temperature Scale
Differentiate between temperature and thermal energy. Your class will build a thermometer using simple materials and develop their own scale for measuring temperature. Discuss with your class and consider why engineers need to understand...
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Stop Heat from Escaping
Students explore the uses of insulation and describe how insulation helps to conserve energy. They work in groups and use plastic, wool, paper and aluminum to experiment with the heat-retaining properties of various materials.
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What Is Energy? Short Demos
Students engage in three short, hands-on, in-class demos which expand students' understand of energy. First, using peanuts and heat, students see how the human body burns food to make energy. Then, they create paper snake mobiles to...
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Solar Power
Fifth graders create their own solar panel. They use this experiment to see how the sun can be used as a form of energy.
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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...
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Specific Heat of Metal
Learners experiment with different types of metal by dipping them in boiling water and cool water and recording temperature changes in the water. By doing this, they find the specific heat of the metals.
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Science: Let's Have a Cool Lunch
First graders develop problem-solving skills by designing methods for keeping lunch boxes cool. Once they determine the amount of sunlight and heat generated in shaded and unshaded areas, they explore ways to provide shade. Finally, 1st...
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Heat Loss and Cool Gains
Fifth graders predict what happens when cold and hot water are mixed together. In this physics activity, 5th graders discuss how heat transfer takes place. They record temperature readings and compare it with their prediction.
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Energy Efficient Homes
Students observe and gather data from a model simulated home. In this efficiency lesson students examine the factors that influence energy efficiency, complete a lab activity then draw conclusions from their data.
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Energy Activities
Students conduct a variety of experiments related to solar energy, heating, cooling, gravity, physical insulation and wind. They consider how the experiments relate to energy and the consumption of energy and then participate in a class...
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TO CONSERVE OR NOT TO CONSERVE
Students explore how energy is wasted at home and at work and develop a program to save energy in a specific area.
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Household Conservation/Efficiency
Hook your class up to an online home energy usage calculator so that they can estimate the amount used per month by their families. Then give them Watt meters with which they will measure the power consumption of several small...
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Energy Detectives
Students explore where energy comes from and identify the different kinds of energy. In this energy lesson students search their classroom for energy connections and record the way that they use energy.
Teach Engineering
Insulation Materials Investigation
Don't melt away! Pairs investigate different insulation materials to determine which one is better than the others. Using a low-temp heat plate, the teams insulate an ice cube from the heat source with a variety of substances. They...
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Heat and Matter
Students explore liquids and solids by conducting in class experiments. For this matter lesson, students define the properties of matter and how heat can change those properties. Students experiment with heating objects such as butter...
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Earth Energy Budget Pre Lab
Students explore energy by conducting an in class experiment. In this climate change lesson plan, students conduct a water vapor experiment in a soda bottle. Students utilize graphs and charts to analyze the results of the experiment and...
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Chemistry: Energy Resources and Transfers
Students explore the concepts of energy resources and energy transfers. In this chemistry lesson, students examine renewable and non-renewable energy sources as they view classroom demonstrations and discuss the concepts as well as their...
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Surface Air Temperature Trends of the Caribbean
Students use real satellite data to determine the changes in near-surface air temperature at different times of the year over the Caribbean Sea. They discover how Earth's tilt causes seasonal differences in incoming solar energy. They...
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Ice Energy
Learners study the concept of ice energy. In this ice energy lesson, students observe what happens when salt is sprinkled on a piece of ice before following a recipe to make two types of ice cream. They note the difference in the two...
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Thermal Energy and Heat Unit
Students explain that heat energy in a material consists of the disordered motions of its atoms or molecules. They know and explain that transformations of energy usually transform some energy into the form of heat, which dissipates by...
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Cost Effective Buying
Students evaluate energy-related purchases. In this consumer awareness lesson, students visit an appliance store and rank the products' cost effectiveness by using a mathematical formula.
American Physiological Society
Thermal Insulators: Keep it Hot!
There's nothing like a cup of hot chocolate on a chilly winter's day. Except for when that hot chocolate quickly becomes lukewarm chocolate ... or even cold chocolate. What material provides the best insulation to keep the chocolate from...