Lesson Plan Overview: Continue to make general observations of heat, and how it may cause changes in objects.

Discuss what changes can occur and develop explanations.

Whole unit guiding question: What does heat energy have to do with the snow melting outside?
Lesson guiding question: How does heat, or the lack of heat, impact the size of an object?
Materials:

time

brass ball and loop (one set for whole group demo)
balloons (6 one per group) (12 for whole grade)
stips of paper (6 one per goup) (12 for whole grade)
stapler and staples (enough for class to share)
lighter (one) or bunsen burner make sure you check for and prepare materials well ahead of
beaker with cold water
SMARTboard
SMARTboard slides
ELMO

Introduction (15 minutes)

Intro to the days lesson:
the lesson will begin with the essential question of how does heat, or the lack of
heat, impact the size of an object?
As a whole class we will discuss and record our initial ideas of answering this
question.
Tell students that there will be two experiences that will help us think like
scientists and find patterns in our observations.
Setup for thermal contraction (students need to set up the experience so that the balloon has
enough time outside/in freezer)
Tell students that the first experience will have to do with cold, or the lack of
heat.
Instructions for the experiment:
First showcase all the materials and how they will be put
together
each group will receive a balloon, a piece of
paper to use as a ribbon and a stapler.
each group will blow up the balloon,
measure its circumference with the piece of paper and staple it together so that it
will hold as a somewhat accurate measurement of the original size of the
balloon.
Before passing out the materials, allow students to make
predictions about what will happen to the balloons size if we were to set it outside in the
cold for 20 minutes (or in a freezer if it is not cold enough outside)
Students will not receive materials until their predictions are
made.
Students prepare their balloons and will have a volunteer place them outside or
in the freezer in the staff lounge.
Main Teaching Activities (20 minutes)
Teacher demonstration

 While the balloons are in the cold experiencing a lack of heat, students will
gather around for a teacher led demonstration of what the addition of heat can do to an object.
Refer back to the original ideas about what the lack of or addition of heat can do
to an object.
Show students that the brass ball easily goes through the metal ring.
Students then need to make predictions of what will happen when the brass ball
is heated.
Once students have made their predictions heat up the brass ball with a bunsen
burner. Hold it there for about a minute.
Then try to put the brass ball into the metal ring (this time it wont fit) Magic!
Students make observations on their observation sheet.
Now put the brass ball in a beaker of cold water. Try to put it into the metal ring
(this time it wont fit)
Students make their observations on their sheet.

Check on balloons
by this time students should be able to check on their balloons and observe on
their sheets how the pape ring fits on the balloon and record those observations.

Conclusion (10 minutes) whole class discussion

What observations did you make about the balloon? The brass ball and ring?
How did those objects change in size?
Why did those objects change in size?
Be sure to give students about 5-7 minutes to fill in the last question on their
observation sheet about how/why the absence of heat or the addition of heat can change the size of
an object.

take care of materials

one person from each group gathers up materials and brings them to the back
table to take care of.

Lesson Plan 3: Data Analysis

Connection to I-AIM Section and Function:
Students explain patterns

Materials:

Sticky Notes, small stack (one per group)

ELMO
SMARTboard
Previous worksheets from days one and two

Introduction (5 minutes)
A. The lesson will begin by reviewing the previous days guiding questions and the experiments we
did.
B. Inform students that scientists look for patterns to form explanations in their data.
C. Today, we will be getting back all the observations sheets that we filled out from our previous
experiences with heat and we will make a classlist of our observations to see if there are any patterns or
ways that we can organize our data.
D. Our guiding question for this day is, What exactly is heat? How can heat change an object such
as a balloon?
Main Teaching Activities (35 minutes)
A. In order for us to have a way to see everyones data, we need a way to make it visible.
B. In order to do that, we are going to use sticky notes to write down the observations we made and
then we sort them to try and find patterns.
C. In just a minute I will have our paper passers hand back your worksheets so that you can begin
recording your observations onto sticky notes. (papers will be organized by group in order to make this
transition move quickly).
D. I want to let you know that you may have more than enough sticky notes. If thats the case, put
your extra sticky notes on the upper right-hand corner of your desk. DO NOT WASTE THEM! You may
also not have enough sticky notes, as I really did not count them. The best way to solve this problem is to
ask other groups to share theirs, or look to see if they have extra.
E. When you are finished recording your observations, You will have three places to put them. I have
three sheets of paper, one that asks What is heat? One that says, How can heat cause changes and
another that asks for any outside information you know about heat. For example maybe you have seen an
example of heat in action somewhere and you want to put that data in there.
F. Students will perform a gallery walk to look at other sheets from different groups
G. Students will add any extra data to their own group

H. When I say go, return to your seats with your partner.

I. Students will perform a think-pair-share.
a. Start by having students sit silently to think about anything they noticed, about
heat and any patterns they noticed in our data. Students will sit for a minute silently to think. This
will need to be modeled for students.
J. Share for 1 minute and 30 seconds
K. Pull students back to whole group (hi-five).
L. Use popsicle sticks to call on students randomly to hear what either they said to their partner, or
what their partner said to them.
M. Explain to students that we have reviewed our data, analyzed it, discussed it, now we need to
make some statements to reflect our findings.
N. Explain the worksheet, paper passers will pass it out.
O. Students will work on worksheet to answer the statements worksheet.
Conclusion (5 minutes)
A. Have 2 students share the the statements they made for the worksheet. (One will answer the first
two questions, the other will answer the second.)
B. Tell them that we have come up with some answers to explain what we have noticed in these past
experiences, but we still dont quite know why heat changes occur, or what heat is.
C. Ask them to reflect on todays lesson and really try to think about what the answer to this is
because tomorrow we will have some actual explanations led by me to help them to really understand heat,
and then we will reflect on these statements to see if there are any changes that need to occur.
Lesson Plan 4: Scientific Explanations of Heat
Connection to I-AIM Section and Function:

Materials:
A. Slides PowerPoint, Heat
B. SMART board
C. Guiding worksheet [Click Here]
Introduction (5 minutes)
A. Review the previous days experiences using a think pair share to elicit ideas.
B. Also remind students that we left yesterday with statements of what we learned about heat. I
informed you yesterday that today will actually have some scientific information we will learn about heat.
We will do that with a powerpoint, but we will also use our bodies for movement in order to really
understand what is happening.
Main Teaching Activities (--minutes)
A. Tableaux explanation of matter, heat, and changes.

a.
b.

Students will stand up, and move to the open space of the room.
Task students to get as tightly squeezed as they can

Main Teaching Activities (30 minutes)

A. If they are uncomfortable being squeezed in the middle, they may choose to stay on the outside of
the group so that they arent as squished.
a. Thank students who decide to stay in the middle.
B. Remind students that everything in this world, and beyond is made up of very tiny pieces of
matter. Inform students that right now they are matter. In fact, because they are so tightly squeezed
together, we know that they are an object that is solid. We learned about solids in our previous unit.
C. As students to keep their feet still and move their upper bodies around slowly.
D. In solids, this matter does not have a lot of space to move. There are forces working to pull these
pieces of matter together. Kind of like how magnets pull each other together!
E. This movement that they are doing with their bodies is heat! Heat isnt a something that can be
seen or held, heat is the movement of matter.
F. Right now, this solid that we made is pretty cold. There is not a lot of heat going on. Is sounds
different to hear that something cold has heat, but everything in this world has some amount of heat going
on, how much heat depends on how much movement is going on with the matter.
G. Lets put you guys in the oven. Ill turn the heat up just slightly. Remember that as the brass ball
got hotter, it expanded.
a. We know it got hotter, because the matter is moving much more!
H. Naturally, as you move more you are bumping into each other more and you start to push each
other away.
a. This is really what is happening to the matter.
b. Everyone take a very small step forward, we have enough heat now that you are
pushing away from each other with some force.
c. Now, there are still forces keeping you guys together, and you do not have
enough force to get too much more room, but we are getting there.
I. We know you are a sold still because you are still really close to each other. However, what
happened to our object? Think back to the brass ball and ring. (It expanded, got bigger)
a. Would you fit through that loop anymore? (No.)
J. Alright, I turned the heat up a little more, how can you show me this happened? (Move more and
take another step away from each other.)
a. Continue to tell students that youve turned the heat up more until they are half
an arms length apart.
K. Now guess what! Our matter has had enough force to push away from those forces holding us
together!
a. They are still there and we cannot escape from each other, but we have created
enough room that we can move our feet!
b. Start to slide about in between each other. Dont go out side of this box (make a
visual box to mark for students)
L. Do you think this object is still a solid? What might it be instead? (Liquid)
a. What do we call what just happened?
i.
I will remind you that we just went from a solid to a liquid.
1. Think of an ice cube! (Melted)
M. Alright, Im taking this group of matter, whatever it is, which we know it could be anything in this
world because everything is made of matter. I am taking this matter and putting it into the freezer.
a. Now dont do this too quickly, but I want you to show me how I know this
matter is in the freezer. What will your bodies do? (Move together, our bodies will move less).
b. Alright, now we are back into a solid again and your upper bodies are moving.
We cannot make enough force to push very strongly against the forces holding us together.

N. So first we showed a change in heat by putting our object next to another hot object (the oven) and
we know from our cold water experience that objects can gain heat by being close to objects that have more
heat than them.
O. Then, we went into the freezer and we know that being in the freezer, objects lost heat because it
was next to other objects in the freezer that had less heat.
a. This could be much simpler than just being next to frozen peas, as your body is
moving it is bumping into other pieces of matter that are around you. In fact, even the air around
us is made of matter so you could have bumped into that matter, and gave away some of your heat
to it!
P. We also know another way to cause a change in heat. What experience was that? (Rubbing hands
together)
Q. So now I will work with Ms. Brown to cause friction, or rubbing to give you guys some more
heat! (Work together to push against students slightly to cause them to move more.
a. This isnt a lot of heat, but it is still some! We caused you to move some more
and heat is just simply the movement of matter!
R. Alright, lets do one more practice.
a. I put you into the oven, and put it on a pretty low temperature. How can you
show me this?
i.
Are the forces keeping you together still really strong? (Yes)
1. Were still a solid, just slightly bigger!
b. Okay, I turned the temperature up to high! Its getting pretty hot now! Show me
this!
S. And finally, back into the freezer where you will slowlllllllyyyyy giiiiiivvvveee yoooouuurrrrr
hhheeaaattt aaawwwaaayyyy
T. Back to a solid, we just froze folks!
U. At this time, when I say go, get back into your seats and put your eyes on the SMART board.
When I see all of your eyes, I will know to start.
V. Review slides as a visual way to show students what heat is, and how heat can be changed, or
cause changes.
W. After this, ask students to look back at the statements they made yesterday. On the back is the
same exact sheet of paper, just blank.
X. Ask students to rewrite their explanations with this new information that they have in order to
ensure that what they have written down is a scientific fact.

Conclusion (10 minutes)

A. I want you to reflect, or think back to what you had written down on the front of this sheet
yesterday, and the observations you made about heat. How has those ideas changed as of today? You have a
nice tool right in front of you to see that! Yesterday you wrote down on one side of this paper about what
you thought, and now today we learned a lot more about heat and rewrote those statements. How have
those changed? Take two minutes at a complete voice level zero to look at the differences. When that time
is up, I will give you a signal and you can turn to your neighbor and talk about it. (set timer)
B. Give the signal by saying, When I am done talking I will say go and then you will have two
minutes to share what you just thought about. That means one minute for each partner. Go.
C. Pull students back to whole group (timer will beep) and pull popsicle sticks to hear either what
they said, or what their partner said to them.
D. Before we head out, I want to remind you that today we spent a lot of time talking about what heat
was exactly. Can we hold, or touch heat? (No.)

a. Can we touch objects that are hot, they have a lot of heat. What happens to the
size of objects as it is getting more heat? (Gets bigger) so then does that mean it gets smaller when
it loses heat, or gets colder? (Yes.)
b. What is heat exactly? (movement of matter)
c. Lastly, what are some ways we can cause a change of heat?