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Powerful
Explorations - Physics Lessons
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Threaded
Big Idea |
Our
society is heavily dependent on the energy we consume.
The consumption of this energy contributes to environmental
health concerns. |
Essential
Question |
What
can we do to minimize the environmental health impacts of
our inevitable consumption of energy? |
Learning
Cycle |
Lesson
Title & Description |
Objective
Students will: |
Class
period & week |
Engage |
Power-Who
Needs It?
The reading for the lesson is from July 4, 2004 from the
NY Times. The information provided should be appropriate
for a very long time. |
Become
aware of an energy-driven environmental health issue. |
|
Explore |
Energy
and Environmental Trade-offs
During this lesson students will brainstorm
ideas about how they consume energy, and what sources of
energy are available to them. |
Explore
the idea of energy consumption, and begin to understand finite
resources |
Week
1
Day2-3 |
Explain |
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Apply/Project |
We just
don’t have the power! |
Make a
recommendation on which plant should be built. |
Week
7
Day 2-5
Week 8
All |
Big
Idea
|
Energy
can be neither created nor destroyed. All traditional
energy sources are finite in nature, and their use inevitably
causes pollution and/or waste.
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Essential
Question |
Where
does our energy come from? |
Learning
Cycle
|
Lesson
Title & Description
|
Objective
Students will:
|
Class
period & week
|
Engage
|
Energy
and Environmental Trade-offs
During this lesson students will brainstorm
ideas about how they consume energy, and what sources of
energy are available to them. |
Relate
the consumption of energy to both natural resources and
to pollution. Discuss renewable vs. non-renewable.
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|
Explore/Explain
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Energy
for Free
Students
will observe the “drinking bird” perpetual
motion machine when coming into class. Without the knowledge
of how the bird works, it might seem like it will go forever.
Of course it will not, and the reasons for this will be
discussed.
|
Understand
the fallacy of perpetual motion machines through knowledge
of the conservation of energy.
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Apply
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How
much more is there? |
Research
a topic related to non-renewable energy sources,
focusing on the idea that these resources will be depleted.
(list of topics provided)
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Week 1
Day 5
Week 2
Day 1-3
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Big
Idea |
A
large portion of the energy we consume is in the form
of electricity. Electricity performs work by electrons
flowing through a circuit. |
Essential Question |
What
is electricity? What laws govern its behavior? |
Learning
Cycle |
Lesson
Title & Description |
Objective
Students will: |
Class
period & week |
Engage |
Opposites
Attract
This
lesson introduces students to the forces involved with
like and unlike electrical charges. |
See
the attraction between two charged particles, and know
Coulomb’s Law |
|
Explore/Explain |
Circuit
Lab
A
circuit lab is an essential part of any unit on electricity.
The laws governing the behavior of
electricity in simple circuits are, well, simple. |
Understand
the importance of a circuit, and begin to see relationships
between voltage, current, and resistance. |
Week
3
Day 1-3 |
Apply |
Electrical
Engineers for a Day
There are a few options for this lesson,
depending on the resources available. There are two projects
provided that would require purchases. |
Design
a circuit to produce a desired current, and test these
circuits for accuracy. |
Week
3
Day 4-5
Week 4
Day 1 |
Big
Idea |
Electricity
is generated using electromagnetic fields in machines
called turbines. There are many different ways of driving
these turbines, such as falling water and steam. |
| Essential Question |
How
are magnets used to generate electricity? |
Learning
Cycle |
Lesson
Title & Description |
Objective
Students will: |
Class
period & week |
Engage |
Are
they really that different?
This lesson serves as an introduction to both
the next unit and the second half of the quarter. The upcoming
unit deals with electromagnetism and its use in turbines
to generate electricity. |
List
many sources of electrical energy, and understand that
they all utilize turbines. |
|
Explore/Explain |
Home-made
Generator
This
experiment is a great chance for students to design their
own experiments. On the first day of the lesson, students
will build their own electric generators.
|
Explore
the effects of moving a conductor through a magnetic field. |
Week
4
Day 3-5
|
Big
Idea |
Fossil
fuels are used to generate electricity by the conversion
of their stored chemical-potential energy to heat. This
heat is then used to power a turbine. The burning and
mining of fossil fuels creates pollution. |
Essential Question |
Where
did the energy stored in fossil fuels originally come from?
Are fossil fuels renewable? |
Learning
Cycle |
Lesson
Title & Description |
Objective
Students will: |
Class
period & week |
Engage |
Global
warming Or
Mining?
Killer Coal
During
this lesson, students will be exploring some of the environmental
health risks involved with both the mining and burning
of coal. |
Understand
the possible impacts of global warming and know that it
stems from CO2. |
|
Explore |
Chemistry
review, and the chemistry of coal.
This
lesson serves as a review of conservation of mass, simple
reactions and equation balancing. |
Research
the pollutants formed by burning coal, and their environmental
health effects. |
Week
5
Day 2-3
|
Explain |
Explore
cont. |
Write
a one-page paper demonstrating their understanding of coal
produced air pollution. |
Week
5
Day 4-5
|
Apply |
Clean
coal?
Using
the knowledge gained from the previous day’s lesson,
students will continue to explore coal and its environmental
health impacts. |
Develop
a fact sheet about clean coal technologies |
Week
6
Day 1 |
Big
Idea |
The
process used to power nuclear reactors is called fission.
This involves the splitting of large, unstable atoms
into smaller ones, which generates a lot of heat, as
well as dangerous nuclear waste. |
Essential
Question |
Where
does the energy of nuclear reactions come from? Is nuclear
energy safe? Renewable? |
Learning
Cycle |
Lesson
Title & Description |
Objective
Students will: |
Class
period & week |
Engage |
Chernobyl
During
this lesson, students will be exposed to information and
images from the Chernobyl power plant accident. |
See
the effects of radiation poisoning. |
|
Explore/Explain |
Uranium
On a Diet
During
this lesson, students will work on a thought exercise about
how the Theory of Relativity can explain the energy of nuclear
reactions. |
Question
the conservation of energy, and discover Relativity. |
Week
6
Day 3-4
|
Apply |
Cold
Fusion?
During this lesson, students will be introduced
to fusion. Having studied fission and learned about mass
defect, students are now prepared to learn about fusion.
|
Understand
the difference between fusion and fission, and know that
the Sun’s energy comes from fusion. |
Week
6
Day 5
Week 7
Day 1 |
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