Weather Under Pressure

Transcription

1 Primary Subject Integrated Subjects Grade Level Length of Unit Research Sources Science Math 5th 10 days Elementary Science with Vernier Book BrainPop Promethean Planet Scholastic Science Readers air_pressure_experiments.php Unit Summary Key Vocabulary Essential Standards/ NCSCOS Students will learn how to measure temperature. Then learn how temperature affects other aspects of weather should as air pressure and seasonal changes. Students will use thermometers, temperature probes, light probes, and pressure sensor probes. Students will do multiple hands-on experiments, before developing their own experiment to test how heat affects air pressure. temperature thermometer seasons hot air (moves fast) cold air (moves slowly) air pressure low pressure weather system high pressure weather system Essential Standards 5.P.3.2 Explain how heating and cooling affect some materials and how this relates to their purpose and practical application. 5.E.1.1 Compare daily and seasonal changes in weather conditions and patterns. 5.E.1.2 Predict upcoming weather events from weather data collected through observation and measurements. NCSOS 3.02 Discuss and determine how the following are affected by predictable patterns of weather: temperature, wind direction and speed, precipitation, cloud cover, and air pressure.

2 Essential Questions Day 1 Why do we use a thermometer? Day 2 What factors result in the highest temperatures? Day 3 Is the temperature really as cold or as warm as it feels to the touch? Day 4 What causes the seasons? Day 5 Which is heavier: hot or cold air? Why? Day 6 What is air pressure? Day 7 What happens to the air when more pressure is added to an area? Days 8 & 9 How does adding heat affect air pressure? Day 10 (Post assessment) Materials/ Resources Needed thermometers calculators Flipchart on temperature vernier software temperature probe pressure probe cups hot water warm water cold water paper towels heat lamps beakers foam balls meter sticks tape markers red food coloring blue food coloring hair dryer ping pong balls index cards 2 liter bottles clay straws funnels marshmallows syringes computers printers poster paper cameras ActiVotes

3 Day 1 EQ: Why do we use a thermometer? Pre-Assessment to open up the unit. Open up a discussion how or why do we use thermometers. Generate a whole group list. Then give students the worksheet on Fahrenheit and Celsius. Read through these sheets to learn how to read the thermometers and the history of the scales. Answer the questions on the sheet. Use calculators to practice using the formula to convert the temperature scale. Then open up the temperature promethean flipchart. Use the flipchart to help students learn to read thermometers. Exit question: Why do we have two different scales to measure temperature? Day 2 EQ: What factors result in the highest temperatures? Students will use thermometers in a lab. Students will have to use thermometers to test the temperature in several areas around the school playground. Students will use the data collect table to write down results. Students will measure temperature on the asphalt in the sun, on the asphalt in the shade, in the grass in the sun, in the grass in the shade, on the cement in the sun, and on the cement in the shade. Students will place thermometer on these places and wait for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes students will record what temperature the thermometer is reading and write that in the data table. Students will make observations from their data table. We will return to the room to discuss our finding. Then we will begin to look at the Vernier probeware. How to use and turn on and how to measure temperature using the probeware. Discuss how to use and how to be careful with the technology. Have kids practice reading temperature from tap water from sink, water fountain temp, and microwaved water temp. This will get students prepared for the next dayʼs activities. What types of places contain the highest temperatures?

4 Day 3 Vernier Lesson EQ: Is the temperature really as cold or as warm as it feels to the touch? Line up the cups of water in front of you on the desk so the room -temperature water is in the middle and the warm and cold are at either end. Decide which group member will test the water first. Have that person place two fingers of one hand in the warm water and two fingers of their other hand in the cold water. Hold them there for about 30 seconds. It is important to leave your fingers in the water baths for the whole 30 seconds. The person with their fingers in the water should estimate (make a best guess) the temperature of the water in the two cups, in F. Record these values in the Data Table below. The person with their fingers in the water should now put their fingers in the roomtemperature water (the one in the middle). Record the estimated temperature of the room-temperature water in the Data Table. Record your observations about what your fingers were feeling when they were placed in the room-temperature water. While the person who tested the water first records their observations, dispose of the water as directed by your teacher, and then obtain new amounts of all three types of water. Repeat Steps 4-9 for each student.you will now measure the temperatures of the water baths using the temperature probe.place the probe in the cool water. Hold onto the probe so you do not tip the cup over. Watch the temperature on the computer screen. When the temperature readings are the same for several seconds (stop increasing or decreasing for each reading), record the temperature value in your Data Table. Repeat Step 11 two times. First you will place the temperature probe in the roomtemperature water, and the second time you will place it in the warm water. Have students analyze their data. Discuss as a class their findings. Exit question: Are our bodies good judges of temperature? Why or why not?

5 Day 4 Vernier lesson EQ: What causes the seasons? Ask the kids the above question and generate ideas about seasons. Then have them hypothesize about the following questions. When it is summer where I live, we receive" (more or less) sunlight. When it is winter where I live, we receive" (more or less) sunlight. Place the lamp on a table and turn it on. Do the following to collect data for summertime: Compare the foam ball to the globe. Hold the ball so that the top of the skewer is tilted toward the light at an angle of 23. This matches the angle of the tilt of the Earth. The tip of the Light Probe should be pointing between the North Pole and the equator (see the drawing above). Practice spinning the ball slowly around the skewer. Practice counting while you spin so that you make two complete rotations in about 20 seconds. Hold the ball over the meter stick so it is about 50 cm from the light. Turn the lights down in the room. Start data collection and slowly rotate the ball twice around the skewer in the 20- second data-collection period. Determine the Summer day and Summer night light level. To examine the data pairs on the displayed graph, tap any data point. As you tap each data point, the light and time values are displayed to the right of the graph. Move the cursor to the highest point of the graph. Record the value as the Summer Light Level Day in your Data Table. Move the cursor to the lowest point of the graph. Record the value as the Summer Light Level Night in your Data Table. Tap the File Cabinet icon to store your data. Record your observations about the amount of light that reaches the surface during the summer and winter time. Discuss findings from lab as a group. Exit question: Explain how we get our seasons.

6 Day 5 EQ: Which is heavier: hot or cold air? Why? Students will use two beakers of water. One beaker of water with hot water the other beaker with cold water. They will drop 6 drops of red food coloring into the hot water beaker. They will drop 6 drops of blue food coloring into the cold water beaker at the same time as they did the other beaker. Students will observe that the cold water should turn blue faster than the hot water turns red. Students should then predict why this happened. Then students will use Marshmallow puppets in groups to show how they think the molecules in the hot water and the molecules in the hot water are reacting with each other. Then they will demonstrate this to the class. Then the teacher will show them how the molecules are acting with students by pulling them up into demonstration groups, have students act as molecules. Then we will pour hot water into the cold water solution and the students should see that the hot water layers on top of the cold water with some mixing. Exit question: We learned that cold air sinks. Why does this happen?

7 Day 6 EQ: What is air pressure? Use the following website to discuss air pressure 1. Plug in the hair dryer and turn it on. 2. Put it on the highest setting and point it straight up. 3. Place your ping pong ball above the hair dryer and watch what happens. Whatʼs happening? Your ping pong ball floats gently above the hair dryer without shifting sideways or flying across the other side of the room. The airflow from the hair dryer pushes the ping pong ball upwards until its upward force equals the force of gravity pushing down on it. When it reaches this point it gently bounces around, floating where the upward and downward forces are equal. The reason the ping pong ball stays nicely inside the column of air produced by the hair dryer without shifting sideways is due to air pressure. The fast moving air from the hair dryer creates a column of lower air pressure, the surrounding higher air pressure forces the ping pong ball to stay inside this column, making it easy to move the hair dryer around without losing control of the ping pong ball. See if you can float 2 or even 3 ping pong balls as an extra challenge. Magic Water Glass Trick: Fill a glass one third with water. Cover the mouth with an index card and invert (holding the card in place) over a sink. Remove your hand from the card. Voila! The card stays in place because air is heavier than water, and the card experiences about 15 pounds of force pushing upward by the air and only about one pound of force pushing downward from the water - hence the card stays in place. (Try this trick over someone's head when you get good at it.) Fountain Bottle: Seal a 2-liter soda water bottle (half-full of water) with a lump of clay wrapped around a long straw, sealing the straw to the mouth of the bottle. Blow hard into the straw. As you blow air into the bottle, the air pressure increases. This higher pressure pushes on the water, which gets forced up and out the straw. Ping Pong Funnel: Insert a ping pong ball into a funnel and blow hard. (You can tilt your head back so that the ball end points to the ceiling. Can you blow hard enough so when you invert the funnel, the ball stays inside? Can you pick up a ball from the table? As you blow into the funnel, the air where the ball sits in the funnel moves faster and generates lower air pressure than the rest of the air surrounding the ball. This means that the pressure under the ball is lower than the surrounding air which is, by comparison, a higher pressure. This higher pressure pushes the ball back into the funnel no matter how hard you blow or which way you hold the funnel. Exit question: What happens to the objects when high pressure is exerted on it?

8 Day 7 EQ: What happens to the air when more pressure is added to an area? Place a marshmallow on your work surface. Observe it closely, looking for any evidence that this marshmallow might suddenly change size! Make notes in journals about what you observe. Pick up the syringe and pull the handle all the way out of the tube. Carefully place the marshmallow in the tube. Replace the handle and slowly push down until it almost touches the marshmallow. Observe the marshmallow. Make notes on what you see. Continue observing the marshmallow as you pull the handle almost out, then slowly push it down again until it almost touches the marshmallow. Repeat two or three times. Make notes on what you see. Plug the tip of the syringe with your finger. Slowly pull the handle back. Observe the marshmallow. Now push the handle back in. Observe the marshmallow. Repeat until everyone has had a turn. Share and compare observations with your partners. Then students will use pressure sensors to measure air pressure. Students will compare air pressure as they add and take away air in a bottle. Students will use the pressure sensor, place it in the bottle. Then use the syringe to add air to the bottle. Students should observe the sensor reading. Then students will use the syringe to take away air from the bottle. Students will observe the sensor reading as they take the air out of the bottle. Students will make conclusions based on what they witnessed the sensor readings did as they added air and removed air to the bottle. Discuss as a class. Exit question: Based on the effects of air pressure on the marshmallow, what can you conclude about how air pressure affects humans? Days 8 & 9 EQ: How does adding heat affect air pressure? Students will design their own experiment where they will do an experiment using the pressure sensor in the bottle and adding a heat source. Students will have to design their own experiment, data collection table, and then create a science fair type poster to display their experiment and data. Students will then present their poster and experiment in front of the whole group. As students listen to other groups they are to compare and contrast their experiments based on their one that is being presented. Exit question: Based on your findings from your experiment, how does heat affect air pressure?

9 Post Assessment Day 10 Accommodation Cross Curricular Integration Students will be read aloud the pre- and post test if needed. Students will work in colaborative groups to that everyone expertise is utelized. Lab groups will be kept small so that everyone has a chance to participate. ESOL and EC teachers will be involved in an inclusive classroom. Front loaded vocabulary to help ESOL students. Math: Students graph temperature change over time and air pressure change over time. Students also are introduced to temperature conversion from degrees Celsius and degrees Fahrenheit. Reading: Night of the Twisters (Weather related novel) will be read during our Novel Study Block.

10 Assessments: - Performancebased - Formative - Summative Day 1 Pre-assessment: open ended written test Choral read word of the day: temperature Worksheet: temperature Exit question: Why do we have two different scales to measure temperature? Day 2 Choral read word of the day: thermometer Data sheet: investigation observations Think-Pair-Share: discuss observations Exit question: What types of places contain the highest temperatures? Day 3 Choral read previous words of the day: temperature, thermometer Data sheet: investigation observations Think-Pair-Share: discuss observations Exit question: Are our bodies good judges of temperature? Why or why not? Day 4 Choral read word of the day: seasons Data sheet: investigation observations Think-Pair-Share: discuss observations Exit question: Explain how we get our seasons. Day 5 Choral read words of the day: hot air (moves fast), cold air (moves slowly) One sentence summary: investigation observations Act it out: puppet configurations of matter movement Exit question: We learned that cold air sinks. Why does this happen? Day 6 Choral read word of the day: air pressure Journal: investigation observations Sticky note: statements to discuss what was learned from each station Exit question: What happens to the objects when high pressure is exerted on it? Day 7 Choral read previous word of the day: air pressure Journal: investigation observations Think-Pair-Share: discuss observations Data sheet: investigation observations Think-Pair-Share: discuss observations Exit question: Based on the effects of air pressure on the marshmallow, what can you conclude about how air pressure affects humans? Days 8 & 9 Choral read previous words of the day: temperature, air pressure Student created experiment: design, data Poster: present experiment design and data on poster, evaluated using rubric Sticky note: comments on other groupʼs experiment posters Exit question: Based on your findings from your experiment, how does heat affect air pressure? Day 10 Post assessment: open ended written test

11 Extension After this unit students will be able to apply knowledge of cold air and warm air to warm and cold front weather patterns. Created By Gretchen Brown Ken Hartman Elizabeth Wolff