ingridscience

Use batteries as a source of electricity to build circuits.
In the battery a chemical reaction happens that sets up a positive and negative end, which makes negatively charged electrons (which are free in a metal), to flow around the circuit.

Other than storage in batteries, electricity can be made in many ways, including by burning fossil fuels and in sustainable ways (taking the energy of a natural resource and converting it to electrical energy).
Brainstorm sustainable ways of making electricity.

Make electricity with a model wind turbine.
The blades catch the motion energy of the wind and convert it to motion energy. The generator converts motion energy into electrical energy.
Wind accounts for about 4% of B.C.’s electricity generation capacity.
Could also turn a turbine like this with water for hydroelectric power. 87% of electricity in BC is hydro.
In BC, we also still burn natural gas to make electricity. The hot combustion products drive a turbine.

In places with a lot of sunlight, solar is a renewable way of making electricity. (Only 1% of BC electricity is solar.)
Make a circuit with a solar panel, and use a flashlight, light bulb and if possible, the sun to produce electricity.

Wire the solar panel and the wind turbine into a circuit, and use the wind turbine in reverse as a fan:
Use an incandescent bulb or the sun on the solar panel, to make electricity to turn the fan blades.

Table of ways of generating electricity (incomplete). Many methods turn a turbine which drives a generator. Several methods generate steam to turn the turbine.

This lesson explores the nature of light and sound.
It was run outdoors.

Make shadows using the sun - hand shadows or by holding cloth in the path of the sun.
Discussion:
Shadows are where the light is blocked. The cloth is 'opaque'.
Light goes in straight lines. Follow the line from the sun to the cloth to the shadow where the cloth blocks the line of the sun.

Look through scratched plastic to separate light colours.
Discussion:
Light is made up of a mixture of colours (each with their own ‘wavelength’).
Sunlight (called 'white light') is all the colours mixed together (opposite of paint: when all the paint colours are mixed we get brown or black paint).

Look through red and blue filters.
Discussion:
These filters take away some of the colours, to make a new mixture, so we see a new colour.

Sound is made up of a mixture too, but of frequencies: high [sing] frequencies and low [sing].
Even one note is a mixture of frequencies (called the harmonics).

Make a laughing cup.
Add some little rocks to see [vibration].
The vibration of the cup vibrates the air molecules which vibrates our ear drum.

Both light and sound are waves that travel.
See how the waves travel with this model (slinky on the ground).
Light like this (transverse). Sound like this (longitudinal)

Discuss pitch. Demonstrate different sized cups making different sounds.
Shorter cup is higher sound (faster vibrations) taller cup is lower sound (slower vibrations).

Light: longer wavelengths are towards the red end of the rainbow, shorter towards blue (and UV).

Ukulele: show the string - predict wether the longer string makes a lower or higher note.
Sing a song together, using laughing cups.

Turbines are blades that can rotate, and can make electricity when hooked to a generator. They convert the energy in a moving fluid (liquid or gas) into motion (mechanical) energy, which can then be converted to electrical energy in a generator. (Note that for wind energy, they call the whole thing, including the generator, a turbine.)

Turbines can be turned in many ways, including by water (in hydroelectric power), wind (in wind turbines), and by steam. Steam can, in turn, be made by heating water in different ways, including by renewable solar and geothermal systems, as well as burning fossil fuels.

These activities show different ways of turning a turbine-shaped wheel:
Convection spinner shows how rising heat can turn turbine blades. For energy production, heat produced is generally used to make steam from water, which then turns a turbine.
Water wheel shows how falling water can turn turbine blades.
Wind turbine shows how moving air can turn blades to make electricity.

Note this is a new lesson plan entry - there are many life cycle activities on ingridscience that have not made it into this lesson plan yet: search by science content "life cycles"

Deer skeleton, including food web of living things connected to it.
Discussion of deer's life cycle, including its death.
All these living things connected to the deer have their own life cycles.

Seeds are a part of a plant's life cycle.
Plants have evolved ways to spread their seeds - the further they spread them, the more likely a new plant will grow in its own space and light.
Different plants have eveolved different ways of spreading their seeds.
Look at the different seeds and decide how each seed spreads to make new plants.

Do a selection of the activities.

Molecules moving in warm and cold water shows how particles move and mix.

Epsom salt crystal painting is a good visual for particles changing state and moving apart.

Make popcorn, understand the changes in state of the water molecules.
Act out the molecules in making popcorn.

Baking soda and vinegar is a familiar reaction which can be modelled with molecule models.
Set off a rocket with the same chemical reaction.
Make a soda drink with the same chemical reaction, this time between the sour(ish) orange juice and baking powder.

Burn a candle, model the chemical reaction of combustion with molecule models.
Use to discuss the burning of fossil fuels putting CO2 into the air.

Use molecular modelling free play to fill any time.

All living things have life cycles.
Animals grow from an egg, through young stages (with different names), to an adult. (Draw out)
The adult makes eggs which grow and start the cycle again.
Some animals, like humans, look basically the same from young that grows from the egg until adult. The same body parts are in the body all the way through.
(Also fish, birds, reptiles, with some exceptions.)
Other animals look quite different at different stages of growth - the body parts change a lot.
They go through a process called Metamorphosis (write). Meta = change. Morph = form.
Animals that metamorphose look completely different in the young and adult stages.
At the time of metamorphosis, some parts of the body are assimilated back into the body, to provide
Some insects have partial (incomplete) metamorphosis when a nymph hatches out of the egg. It has no pupa stage. The lymph is like an adult but missing body parts e.g. wings the energy to make new body parts.
More than 80% of all animal species undergo metamorphosis.

More detail:
Some insects have partial (incomplete) metamorphosis when a nymph hatches out of the egg. It has no pupa stage. The lymph is like an adult but missing body parts e.g. wings

Animal life cycle cards

Wasp nest and barnacles
On the desks are real specimens
Draw what you see at each

Look at images of camouflaged insects e.g. https://www.bbcearth.com/news/8-creatures-that-are-masters-of-disguise and https://www.sciencefocus.com/nature/heres-looking-at-poo-the-weird-and-…
At many of the stages of an insect life cycle they are vulnerable to predators.
Look at how these insects have camouflaged themselves to hide from predators or scare them off. (They look like plants, large eyes and even bird poop!)

Wrap:
We looked at animals that go through metamorphosis.
The reason for spending all this energy on reorganizing the body?
The young and adult stages do not compete for resources.
The young and adult have different predators, enhancing overall survival.
Some animals time metamorphosis to when conditions are best for the next stage.
The different stages can evolve independently to specialize for their jobs e.g. adult evolves to be efficient at making eggs and dispersing them, while the young is all about feeding and growing quickly.

Divide the students into three groups, and have them rotate through three stations,
1. Bird nest study - look closely at different nests
2. Feather study - look closely at feathers (of different kinds if possible)
3. Flight and wing shape - fly paper airplanes and modify them to understand how wing shape determines the flight of birds

Review the stations.
Discuss how birds fly (a novel concept to us): Bird push air to make them move. Air seems like nothing to us as we are heavy. Push air into your face - feel the particles that make it up.
Watch slow motion of birds flying https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qThIyj1mLfs.
During eagle flapping: when a light bird pushes against air particles, they are small enough that the push makes them move.
During humming bird: complex wing beats allows some bird to hover.
During herons: the shape of birds' wings are different on the downstroke and upstroke.
During seagulls: they adjust their wing and tail feathers to change their flight direction. Depending on the wing shape, and which way they push, they make amazing manouvers in the air.

Wrap:
Birds are living dinosaurs. What we understand as dinosaurs are actually the first birds.
Not all of the dinosaurian close relatives of birds could fly, but those that could flew in a range of different ways, suggesting early evolutionary experiments of flight, with birds being the most successful of those experiments.
(from https://www.birdlife.org/news/2021/12/21/its-official-birds-are-literal….)

Students free play with electric circuits to light bulbs and understand the flow of electricity in a loop.
Demonstrate that electric current generates a magnetic field with an electromagnet demonstration.
Show a hand wound motor: that an electromagnet can be arranged so that it spins!
Add motors to students circuits and allow more free play.

Half the students move through magnet stations:
1. Magnets through materials 2. Dancing magnets 3. Magnetic force field patterns.

Half the students do a water resistance activity: racing shapes through water.

Then switch the student groups.
(The multiple short magnet activities should match the time needed to do the longer water resistance activity.)

End with a demonstration of air resistance.

Discussion of the different kinds of forces:

Magnetic force can act through materials and acts at a distance (it does not need to touch the material/magnet to push/pull it) - it is a non-contact force.

Water resistance is the slowing force on an object as it moves through water, as the water pushes against it. We build boats with a shape that reduces water resistance, to go faster and reduce energy - they are 'streamlined'. Fish have different shapes that match their need to move through water: the fast-moving ones are long and thin (streamlined), whereas those that don't need to go fast are flatter or rounder.

Air resistance is a slowing force on an object moving through air. Like water resistance, it is a contact force. We build planes with a streamlined shape to reduce air resistance. A parachute is very wide, to maximize air resistance and to slow the parachutist down.

Water and air resistance are both also called 'drag'.