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OpenSciEd Unit 6.2: Thermal Energy Student Edition
Author(s): NATIONAL CENTER FOR
Edition: 1
Copyright: 0
Pages: 84
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OpenSciEd Middle School science program addresses all middle school NGSS standards. This comprehensive science curriculum empowers students to question, design, investigate, and solve the world around them.
- Phenomenon Based - Centered around exploring phenomena or solving problems
- Driven by Student Questions - Storyline based on students’ questions and ideas
- Grounded in Evidence - Incremental building and revision of ideas based on evidence
- Collaborative - class and teacher figure out ideas together
- Equitable - Builds a classroom culture that values ideas and learning of all
The OpenSciEd model uses a storyline approach, introducing phenomena that anchors storylines developing disciplinary core ideas, concepts, and science/engineering practices. Students are encouraged to dive deep into key points and solve problems through five activities. Students kick off a unit of study, investigate questions, piece together the puzzle in investigations, and problematize the next set of questions to investigate.
Unit 6.2: What keeps different cups or containers from warming up or cooling down?
Students begin this 6th grade science unit by experimenting whether a new plastic cup sold by a store keeps a drink colder for longer than the regular plastic cup that comes free with the drink. Students find that the drink in the regular cup warms up more than the drink in the special cup. This prompts students to identify features of the cups that are different, such as the lid, walls, and hole for the straw, that might explain why one drink warms up more than the other.
Students investigate the different cup features they conjecture to explain the phenomenon, starting with the lid. They model how matter can enter or exit the cup via evaporation. However, they find that in a completely closed system, the liquid inside the cup still changes temperature. This motivates the need to trace the transfer of energy into the drink as it warms up. Through a series of lab investigations and simulations, students find two ways to transfer energy into the drink: (1) the absorption of light and (2) thermal energy from the warmer air around the drink. They are then challenged to design their own drink container that can perform as well as the store-bought container, following a set of design criteria and constraints.
Lesson 1: Why does the temperature of the liquid in some cup systems change more than in others?
Lesson 2: What cup features seem most important for keeping a drink cold?
Lesson 3: How are the cup features that keep things cold the same or different for keeping things hot?
Lesson 4: How does a lid affect what happens to the liquid in the cup?
Lesson 5: Where does the water on the outside of the cold cup system come from?
Lesson 6: How can we explain the effect of a lid on what happens to the liquid in the cup over time?
Lesson 7: If matter cannot enter or exit a closed system, how does a liquid in the system change temperature?
Lesson 8: How does a cup’s surface affect how light warms up a liquid inside the cup?
Lesson 9: How does the temperature of a liquid on one side of a cup wall affect the temperature of a liquid on the other side of the wall?
Lesson 10: What is the difference between a hot and a cold liquid?
Lesson 11: Why do particles move more in hot liquids?
Lesson 12: How does the motion of particles compare in a sample of matter at a given temperature?
Lesson 13: How could the motion of particles on one side of a solid wall affect the motion of the particles on the other side of that wall?
Lesson 14: Does our evidence support that cold is leaving the system or that heat is entering the system?
Lesson 15: How do certain design features slow down the transfer of energy into a cup?
Lesson 16: How can we design a cup system to slow energy transfer into the liquid inside it?
Lesson 17: How can we improve our first design to slow energy transfer into the cup system even more?
Lesson 18: How can containers keep stuff from warming up or cooling down?
NATIONAL CENTER FOR
OpenSciEd® was launched to improve the supply of and address the demand for high-quality, open-source, full course science instructional materials. The goals of OpenSciEd are to ensure any science teacher, anywhere, can access and download freely available, high quality, locally adaptable materials. Though the goal of providing full course materials is still a couple of years away, OpenSciEd is releasing six-week units of instruction as they are completed and externally evaluated as quality by Achieve’s Science Peer Review Panel. OpenSciEd classroom materials are an open education resource and therefore free to download, copy, use, and/or modify. You can download the instructional materials free of charge at Access Materials page on the OpenSciEd website. In an effort to lower barriers for all educators to use OpenSciEd, Kendall Hunt and OpenSciEd have partnered to sell high quality printed books, professional learning and lab kits.