Middle School Physical Science The lessons below form the Middle School Physical Science course in TeenBiz3000 -- a curriculum designed to give every student access to key science concepts and vocabulary. Each lesson, differentiated to meet specific student needs, works to accelerate student comprehension of informational text while challenging students to read for evidence that will help them support their claims. Each lesson includes two types of informational text: a high-interest, contemporary issue and a Dig Deeper, background information that connects the contemporary issue to the topic in Physical Science.. Topic Title Summary These Lights Are Too Cool Traditional incandescent light bulbs produce more infrared radiation and visible light, which are shortcomings that light-emitting diode bulbs, or LEDs, overcome. Energy Interactions The Thrills of Snowboard Racing The law of conservation of energy states that as long as you account for all the different forms of energy involved in any process, the total amount of energy never changes. A Titanic Task Sonar technology uses ultrasound and principles of echolocation to locate objects underwater. Hey, That's My Different lenses refract light in different ways and Mat Picture! When the Sky Turned Red and Green Got Goat's Milk? Make Ice Cream! Space-Age Help for Age-Old Job Bringing the Trains Back form images useful for a variety of purposes. The interaction of Earth s magnetic field and the constant streaming of charged particles from the Sun cause the northern and southern lights. Making a solution of salt and water is key to making ice cream. A laser is a device that produces an intense, concentrated beam of light that is brighter than sunlight. Lasers are used today in an amazing variety of ways. The Doppler effect describes the changing pitch of trains, ambulances, and other sounds as they move past. Sunshine State Shows the Way Electric power is the rate at which electrical energy is generated from another source of energy. Energy Interactions The Cold, Cold Moon While the Fahrenheit and Celsius temperature 1
scales both measure the average kinetic energy of matter, they use a different number of units to do so. Energy Interactions Good for Chile? The production of hydroelectricity involves the conversion of potential energy to kinetic energy to electrical energy. Yes, It's Real Wavelength determines color. Visible light reflected from an object gives it color. Materials can be mixed to produce colors just as light can. When mixed, these primary pigments absorb more colors and reflect fewer wavelengths. Sheets of Light Light can be reflected, transmitted, or absorbed. Most objects are visible because they reflect light. Transmission and absorption affect how objects look i.e., transparent, translucent, or opaque. Queen Yu-Na Newton s second law relates force, mass, and acceleration. Forces can change the direction of motion, and any force that keeps an object moving in a circle at a constant speed is called a centripetal force. Play Ball! Play Soccer, Eat Well The centripetal force keeping one object in orbit around another object is due to the gravitational pull between the two objects. Carbon-based molecules are life s building blocks. These organic molecules are classified into four major groups: carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, and nucleic acids. A Lifetime of Music Sound is a series of disturbances, or vibrations, that travel through air or another medium. Hard Road to Stardom Balanced and unbalanced forces result in the various motions in the game of basketball. Throw Old Computers in the Trash? No Way! The position of an element on the periodic table indicates the properties of its atoms and whether it is classified as a metal, nonmetal, or metalloid. Energy Interactions Guitar Player Helps Haiti Goldman Takes the Cake Small Cars Make Big Jumps in Safety Earthquakes transfer energy via mechanical waves through the ground outward from the point of the earthquake. The way in which foods cook is based on principles of heat and temperature, including how energy as heat is transferred to different foods and how certain foods cook under different temperatures. Inertia and momentum are responsible for what happens to each of the objects involved in a 2
collision. A New Use for Old Clothes Scientists use nanotechnology, a process that creates electronic circuits and devices from single atoms and molecules, to create extremely tiny Saving a City's Water machines and materials. As particles in a fluid collide with an object, the fluid s particles apply a constant force to the surfaces of the object, producing pressure against the surfaces that the particles come in contact with. There s Gold in That Ocean Atoms of a particular element are identical to each other but are different from atoms of all other elements. Energy Interactions A Visit From Vonn The conversion of kinetic energy to potential Energy Interactions Bye Bye, Bottled Water Are Speedos Too Speedy? Milky Ways in the Making Give up Oil? Not So Fast A New House on the Block As Good as Ice Cream The Bike of Tomorrow? Mia Hamm: A Leader in Women's Soccer energy and back again is the basis of many sports. Many everyday materials made of carbon-based molecules contain macromolecules called polymers, which are made of smaller, repeating units called monomers. Whether or not an object floats in a fluid depends on the densities of both the object and the fluid and the amount of buoyant force acting on the object. Very extreme sources of gravity cause the normally straight path of a light beam to bend. Petrochemicals, or petroleum-based chemicals, are one kind of hydrocarbon, which are carbonbased compounds that are the basis of many materials. Heat is a transfer of energy from objects at a higher temperature to objects at a lower temperature, and occurs by conduction, convection, and radiation. Substances can undergo chemical changes, which results in new substances, or physical changes, which result in different forms of the original substance. Work transfers energy and machines make work easier. Within a machine, the more mechanical energy that is lost in the transfer to other forms of energy, the less efficient the machine. Newton s first law relates force and motion. Newton s ideas were built on those of other scientists, especially Galileo Galilei. 3
The Car That Runs on Chocolate Chemical reactions involve energy changes. Exothermic reactions release energy, while endothermic reactions absorb energy. Cold as Ice The same substance in three different states of matter differs only in the way the particles in the substance are able to move about, which gives solids, liquids, and gases specific attributes. Energy Interactions An Ear for Soccer The law of conservation of energy describes how energy changes form, but does not disappear. A Tsunami? Where? Commonly measured properties of waves include amplitude, wavelength, and frequency. Coming Up More Lightning The Molecule Movie Boeing's Dream Takes Off Boat Race Makes Waves New Tools to the Rescue Easy Bake Oven Keeps Cooking Lightning is a high-energy discharge of static electricity. It comes from the electric potential of millions of volts, which releases large amounts of energy in the form of light, heat, and sound. Scientists use a scanning tunneling microscope to make images of atoms, then move, and rearrange them. A chemical bond is the force that holds two or more atoms together in a molecule. Joint efforts by scientists and engineers developed carbon fiber technology used in applications such as stadiums and jet liners. Modern solar cells enable engineers to capture the Sun's energy to power homes and vehicles. The Internet and cell phone technologies work together to enable communications. The phasing out of inefficient incandescent light bulbs could have spelled doom for a toy, but engineers redesigned the toy using a series of processes that have made it better than ever. PupLight's Just Right The engineering design process can be used to create useful devices and processes to solve problems. 100 Years of "THINK" Development of technology that would lead to the computer age began 100 years ago. Today, computers run on silicon chips almost microscopic in size. The Ride of the Future? Scientists and engineers use claims, evidence, and reasoning to communicate information to colleagues and the public at large. A Flying Car...Finally! Scientists and engineers explore air as a fluid to design the best components required for a flying car. Music-Making Robots are designed to do things for humans that 4
Machines may be dangerous or repetitive. They also explore places where humans are unable to go. Space-Age Help for Grandma Tools can be designed to take advantage of pressure and how it is exerted over an area. 5