A Level One Inquiry Assignment: Classroom Demonstration

Technology incorporated: Digital Video Camera,  EcoLog XL sensors, EcoLab software to view graphs of temperature readings, LCD projector to project graphs

This activity was adapted from the Solar Cooking Activity available at:  http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/classactivities/SolarCookingIntermediateActivity.pdf.   Standard of Learning:  6.2 The student will investigate and understand basic sources of energy, their origins, and uses.   Objectives:  The students will understand how energy is transformed from one form of energy to another form of energy.   Instruction Delivery:  Mrs. Chapman will show a hot dog solar heater connected to temperature sensors.  The following day the children will observe data collected from the sensors.  Students will record the data and write a paragraph about the source of the energy.  Students will also draw a diagram illustrating the solar heater and where the energy originated.

Some thoughts on this experiment:

1.  It "didn't work" when I tried it at home the afternoon before class demonstration.

2.  As we re-enacted the setup in each class, we explicitly asked students what the hypothesis for the experiment was.

3.  The following day, when students wrote about what happened, they developed their understanding and exposed misconceptions when they were asked to write a paragraph as opposed to writing a mere sentence.  Circulating through the classroom, teachers stopped to ask students to clarify, and jotted down some of students' exceptional usage of scientific vocabulary such as reflected, absorbed, and trapped heat.

4.  Teachers received more quality writing responses when they told students that each step of the setup was important to the outcome.  Students then had more direction in how to write an entire paragraph.

Misconceptions unveiled: