Every year I dread teaching in the 90 to 100 degree weather that August, September, and October usually bring to Southern California! This year..I thought...I might as well take advantage of the heat and teach my kinders about solar energy!
Since NGSS is rolling out in my district this year, I've been thinking of ways to incorporate them into what I'm already teaching and BAM! It hit me! I can incorporate NGSS K-PS3-1 (make observations to determine the effect of sunlight on the Earth's surface) into my Colors unit. You see...I thought I'd introduce the concept of solar energy by teaching the kids how light absorption and heat absorption work with colors.
Here's what I did to introduce the idea of solar energy:
1) We watched a
youtube video about light absorption and reflection. I only showed the part about the lights and gummy bears.
2) Then, I discussed how light reflects off of white and how it gets absorbed by black. I used the terms reflects/bounces and absorbed/sucked into to make it easier for my kinders to get. I also made sure to illustrate what happens with drawings. I also linked it to why you feel more hot when you where dark colored vs. light colored clothing.
3) Last, I had the kids test out the information we just learned. We predicted what would happen if we put a chocolate chip on a white piece of paper and what would happen if we put it on a black piece of paper. Of course...I didn't have time to make a cook graph to chart our predictions or to make a paper for us to record our predictions...but I will def do this next year! After we discussed what we thought and why, I had them work in partners. One partner had a white square paper. The second partner had a black square paper. We went outside and tested out our predictions. It was awesome to see the kids get so excited when the chocolate chip melted faster on the black paper vs the white paper.
4) And of course....we recorded what happened!
I love how my students really understood the concept of how light reflects and gets absorbed by doing something as simple as melting chocolate on paper!
And of course...what better way to learn how people use this to help them create solar energy than to make solar ovens! The kids were able to apply what they learned to make some awesome solar ovens!
I loved how I was able to incorporate NGSS and STEM with this activity. What made it even more fun was having our 4th/5th grade buddies help the kids design their solar ovens. The students all had a blast and couldn't believe how much solar heat the ovens were able to trap and create! And of course...who wouldn't love getting to eat a S'MORE at school!
Here's how we were able to do these at school:
1) I sent out a sign up sheet through bloomz to get graham crackers, marshmallows, mini chocolate hershey candy bars, plastic wrap, and foil. And of course parent volunteers. Keep in mind though...I only had one parent come so this is totally do-able without the parent help. I would just precut the openings to the boxes so that you don't have to run around cutting boxes during the activity.
2) Instead of using pizza boxes, I just collected old shoe boxes and my many amazon boxes and had the kids make one solar oven for every 4 students (two kinders and two 4th/5th grade students). That way, I only needed about 12 boxes for my 24 students. I wanted to provide a variety of boxes for the kids so that they could really think about how they wanted to design their ovens. It wouldn't really be a STEM lesson if I told them exactly how to make the solar ovens now would it?
4) Before I sent the kids out to build, I showed them pictures of various solar ovens so that they could see they come in all shapes and sizes. I also reviewed the concepts that would help them with their designs. (Things like black gets hotter than white, foil reflects heat, the plastic wrap can help trap in the heat, etc.)
5) I laid out the materials in one area so that the kids could come up and get what they needed as they were designing the ovens.
6) I saved the food items for last and made sure to have an adult pass out what they needed. I wanted to make sure all the kids had enough supplies and we all know how tempting it is to sneak in an extra chocolate here and there :)
7) The kids set the ovens outside on benches (to avoid ants) and we let them stay out there for 3 hours. The kinders checked on them once every hour and were amazed how quickly the chocolate melted!
8) While we waited for our buddies to come and eat s'mores, I had the kids draw a picture of their solar oven design and what they observed happening in their ovens. Then, they could either draw or write (using their phonetic spelling) what they learned about solar energy.
9) Right before lunch, the 4th/5th graders came back and we all ate our s'mores!
10) Lastly, I let the older kids take the solar ovens home and they were soooooo excited! I never thought I'd see so many older kids excited to take home chocolate covered boxes with wrinkled foil and saran wrap!
One of the many solar ovens the kids designed! I let the kids decide if they wanted their chocolate on top or under the marshmallows. It was interesting to see what they did!
Even though I got a lot of different answers like "The sun creates heat, we can cook food with the sun, we can trap heat, etc." almost all the kids wrote the sentence we did together. But I'm not complaining! I'm just so happy the kids enjoyed the lesson and got to do some hands on learning!
Next up....designing something that will reduce how hot it gets when we are outside! NGSS K-PS3-2!!! Now that we know what happens when we trap/absorb the heat and we know how to do that...I think it will be easier to figure out how to design something that will reduce/reflect the heat. I can't believe I'm saying this but I'm kinda glad it will be 90-100 degrees next week!
