FOSS SCIENCE: Weather and Water 1

Jeremy Wheeler

12/3/10

Entry Activity

• Choose a button that describes your attitude or how your feeling today.

• Be ready to share

CHIJI CARDS

• Choose a card and think of a personal connection or relationship that you have with the card

• Choose a card that can represent where you were before starting FOSS implementation, Where you are now, and where you want to be…

• Relationships and science…(How is science about relationships? What types of relationships in science do you want your students to see?

• Object Lesson: “obverse”

Mental models and perspectives-how does our view of the world help us as classroom leaders? Hinder us?

The Book of Chiji

• Chris Cavert and Stephen Simpson

Agenda (Morning)

Investigation 1

Part 1- What is weather? (meteorologists, forecasts) suggested 2 classes

Part 2- Local weather: Using weather instruments and collecting data;writing a weather report;

Investigation 2

Part 1- “The air around us” What is matter? MASS? Volume? Density? Does air have mass? Design a procedure/investigation that demonstrates air has mass

Part 2- Earth’s atmosphere-Mass, Volume, density will help students with the properties of Air.

Review assessment for investigations 1&2

Agenda (afternoon)

• Review materials for Investigations 1 and 2; Plan and collaborate

• create materials for instruction and assessment; it could be variables

• Post anything you have created for the greater good on the stem teacher site for 6th grade

• Create a pre-assessment for the module

What is Weather?

• Are you more like…Breakfast or DinnerRoses or TulipsHeat and sun or cold and snowTornado or HurricaneBlizzard or ThunderstormStrategies: *Words that come to mind when you think of weather…*Concept mapping for weather…*Quick write What is weather? (FOSS)What factors would you need to consider if you were going

to describe or forecast weather?

Weather in our lives

• Is today’s weather normal for this time of the year? How do you know?

• Is this the type of weather that would happen everywhere on earth? How do you know?

• Why might the weather be important to you? To others?

PAIRS VIEW

Wonders of weather (ques. pg 45): part-4* What surprised you about the weather

shown in the video?* Weather that is dangerous or causes

damage is called severe weather. Have you ever experienced severe weather? If so, describe it.

*What are some other types of severe weather you have heard or read about?

WOW-Hurricanes: part-2Pairs View (pg.45 and 46)

• What is a hurricane?• What conditions are necessary for a hurricane to

form?• What kinds of damage occur during hurricanes?• What are some things people have done to try to

lessen hurricane damage?• Where have some of the most devastating

hurricanes occurred and when?• How do meteorlogists know when a hurricane is

coming and where it might strike land?

Why Study Weather?

• Is there anything we can do as humans to prevent, defuse, redirect, or weaken the impact of a storm or severe weather?

• What do you humans do during severe weather events?

• Why might it be important to study weather; and, know the causes and science behind weather?

• Future question for exploration: How is global warming related to weather?

Brainstorm Questions about weather

• List all the questions you have about weather. Cooperative learning structure: “think write round robin”

• Sort questions in categories

Introduce vocabulary-(p. 46, 11)

• Meteorology: The scientific study of earth’s weather

• Meteorologist: A person who studies the causes and effects of weather

• Forecasts: let people know what kind of weather to expect the next day or week

• Assign HW: Students should bring a copy of a local weather report

• Assign reading: Read the article from page 3 Naming Hurricanes

Write a weather report

• Take a short field trip outside and have them bring their writing materials with them to write a weather report

• Share reports: Record the terms they use on a chart to compare similarities and differences;

Weather reports HW

• Use HW to have students discuss

What types of information are in the weather reports they brought?

What was the source for your weather report?

How does the report compare to the one you just wrote?

*They should see that there reports did not include actual measurements for temperature, humidity, etc.

Introduce the Local weather report

• Use the class weather chart to record daily weather: (p. 52)

• What does visibility mean?• What weather factors might limit visibility?• How can we determine what visibility is?• What information might we include in the column

“Other Observations?”• A different group may conduct weather

observations each day or assign a tool per team.

Lets go outside!

• Explore the weather tools • Record observations:-Celsius temperature-pressure in millibars (a unit of atmospheric pressure equal to one thousandth of a bar; "atmospheric

pressure at sea level is 1013 millibars" pressure unit - a unit measuring force per unit area)

-Humidity in percent-Windspeed mph or km/h-Wind direction is the compass direction from

which the wind is coming from*8 Days of observations

Introduce the weather lab notebook

• Multi media-Resources

• Spreadsheet for collecting weather data

What is matter?

• 3-bags write what is in the bags

10:00 AM BREAK

• 15 minutes

Where does weather happen?

• Atmosphere…

• Air plays an important role in weather

• We will be investigating air over the next several lessons.

Using a Syringe to investigate air

• What happens to the air in the syringe when you push and pull on the plunger?

• Place a clip on the end of the tube.What happens?• Place a small foam cube in the syringe with the clip still on the tube.

What happens?• Place a bubble inside the syringe. What happens?• So what can air do?

Record at least three observations and three questions on your white boards.

All team members record on their activity sheet. P.3

Gas in a syringeVocabulary p.72

• Compressed air is forced into a smaller space

• Compressed air pushes back with a force equal to to the force compressing it

• Pressure is the result of the compressed air pushing back

• What questions do you have about Air?

Multimedia molecular model of air

• Gas in a syringe p. 73 explanation

What is matter?

• How would you describe what matter is?

Concept mapping:

Matter

• Matter is the material that makes up our universe• “tangible” objects are made of matter, matter is made of tangible

objects• Pieces of matter can be as large as planets and as small as atoms

(and subatomic bits)• Matter occupies space; no bit of matter is so small that it occupies

no space• Matter has to be somewhere; and, a far as we know this is one of

the properties of matter

Conservation of matter is: mass cannot be created/destroyed, although it may be rearranged in space, and changed into different types of particles

MASS

• How would you describe mass to someone?

Activity:

• Which object has more mass?

MASS

• Mass is the (Measure) of the amount of mass in an object.

• How do you measure the mass of an object?

Now measure which object has more mass.

Report your process and decision (supporting with data: using your white boards in 5 minutes.

Volume?

• How would you describe volume to someone?

• Volume is how much three-dimensional space a substance (solid, liquid, gas, or plasma) or shape occupies or contains

The volume of a container is generally understood to be the “capacity” of the container, i. e. the amount of fluid (gas or liquid) that the container could hold, rather than the amount of space the container itself displaces

Big cubes:

How could we measure the capacity of the cube?

Mass is related to its size and density

• Archimedes reading

• How did Archimedes use his science to solve his problem?

(Variables readings)

What is Density?

MASS vs Weight

• This is assessed on the mid unit test how

• What is the difference between mass and weight?

• Weight is the pull or force between the earth and the mass of an object or substance

• Weight can vary slightly in different places on earth or greatly on different planets

Air investigation

(Guided) Does Air have Mass?

Provided are the materials

-Create and “describe” a process for conducting the investigation

-Provide an “explanation” for your response

Materials

• Balloons, String, Jumbo, Straws, Tape

Investigation 2: part 2

• Earth’s atmosphere• Resource book page 8• Where is the atmosphere? Page 78• Vocabulary: poster• Atmosphere• Troposphere• Stratosphere• Mesosphere• Thermosphere• exosphere

Multimedia

• Elevator in space

• How might we facilitate this investigation in a more engaging way?

• Questions: atmosphere reading “A thin Blue Veil”

• Extensions: Scale drawing; and weighing

Afternoon Play session

• Review materials for Investigations 1 and 2; Plan and collaborate; explore the kit

• create materials for instruction and assessment; it could be variables

• Post anything you have created for the greater good on the stem teacher site for 6th grade

• Create a pre-assessment for the module

• Discuss Syracuse third party evaluation

Closing

• Chiji-Key moment or learning

• Choose one card that shows a “relationship” or represents a key moment or learning for you today

• “primacy regency effect” David Sousa First and Last