Heat Transfer Lesson

For this lesson, I decided to use a cloth, paper towel, saran wrap and tissues.  I wanted to use tin foil but of course we were out of tin foil.  The saran wrap was the most effective insulator.  In the future I want to compare the tin foil to the saran wrap to see which one is the better insulator of heat. For my students, I would like to ask them to think about how they keep things warm or cool in their own home.  I would like them to base their prediction on this and bring in the materials from home for them to test.  Perhaps I could make groups based on the students who bring in the same materials and then we could test and compare as a whole class.  I would like to have a test to see which size container keeps the water the warmest like in the article we read this week with the porridge.  I think that is something that students do not realize and would be beneficial for their understanding not just for class but in life as well.

Guided Inquiry Lesson

For this assignment I did tested the different surfaces affect on marbles.  I borrowed a ramp from my brother and used carpet, tile floor and sandpaper as my different surfaces.  My results were the same as my prediction.  The marble traveled the furtherest on the tile floor because it was slick, less friction than on the carpet which was thick and have more friction with the marbles.  I had conducted a similar experiment in the past with cars so the results were the same.

When setting up the experiment, I did not have enough resources which is always a struggle for teachers.  At first I only had enough 2 sheets of sandpaper which was not enough for the experiment.  We are having work done at my house so I asked the construction workers if they had more paper I could borrow.  In general, it always seems that teachers need a lot of different resources and I always get the same confused look when I ask people about different materials!

I was going to try to test the amount of time it took the marbles to travel but then I realized that would not really measure the momentum as much as measuring the distance it traveled. I think I would like to provide students with different materials (such as different ramps) and allow them to see which one would help them provide the best results.  I wouldn't like to make this an open inquiry because I am not sure I would know how to supervise one and I would be afraid that a topic such as friction would be too confusing.

It would be fun to have students go to a local park and put different surfaces on slides and have students race each other.  For example one student would just slide on the slide regularly and the other would have to slide down a felt slide.  Then I would have students compare and explain which student traveled the fastest. I would want students to understand how different objects react with different surfaces and understand real life applications such as driving on a wet surface as opposed to a dry surface and the implications it would have in their everyday lives.  I would also like students to be able to use the term friction easily and accurately in their explanations. I think I achieved this goal for myself but I know my students would need more practice to become comfortable using scientific terms.