biomass energy experiment + lesson

We're getting into the thick of our latest Inquiry focus, all about types of energy. All of the teachers on my team have chosen one type of energy to teach and we're setting up rotation lessons for the classes. With seven of us, this could take awhile...! But I love the idea of sharing the teaching and getting to know some of the other kids in the hallway. 

For my energy type, I'm teaching about biomass as a renewable source. Because some classes can only come in for a 45-minute block, I've started each lesson off with a really cool experiment involving biomass energy at work. Basically, I put this slide on the ActivBoard and let the kids get to work:

Note: I handled the warm water part as it had to come from a kettle.

We let that work away as we discussed the energy sources in these pictures:

This led to some great discussion. But then I asked if they knew that things like cow poo, bananas, sewer water, and corn could produce electricity. A lot of them looked at me like I'm crazy. We talked about what these things have in common and were able to come up with a definition for biomass. 

Biomass is any material made by plants or animals that we can convert into energy.

Next, their attention was quickly drawn to the experiments they had left sitting on the windowsill, and what we saw was this:

So cool! We talked about our observations, reviewed our predictions/hypotheses, and came to the conclusion that the materials inside reacted together to create a gas. Pretty smart, these third graders!

Once we decided that the living creature in the bottle was indeed the yeast, I set it up for them as if the yeast was going through a morning routine, not unlike the routines we all might go through. When we're just looking at a  little yeast granule, he does not look alive - in fact he's asleep. To wake him up, we put him in a soothing warm water shower. And how do we all feel after first waking up in the morning? Hungry! Just like our yeast. So we give him a little breakfast of sugar, and as he starts munching away, he begins to burp, letting out little bits of C02 gas, just as we do when we exhale. The kids quickly concluded that it's this carbon dioxide that rose up in the bottle to inflate the balloon. (PS - These little C02 burps are the same reason we have little air pockets in our bread!)

To show the kids some ways that biomass is actually being used throughout the world, I put an iPad at each table team with instructions to find a certain video and they rotated to watch some different examples:

This one was a hit with all that poop...

There are tons of videos out there with great examples.

As they watched, I asked the groups to be thinking about the pros and cons of biomass energy. When they thought of one, they added it to a whole-class T-chart:

By the end of the rotations, this board was Filled!

This was a good way to continue discussion about biomass energy and for eventually comparing various forms of energy. When my class had learned about geothermal energy with another teacher, we asked them to "lay it on the line" by choosing whether they thought geothermal or biomass was the most sustainable choice for energy use. (This is a great Visible Thinking routine called Tug of War.) They moved to the designated side of the room and voila, we had a great tool for debate!

Toad, Frog, Pollywog {it's stuck in my head...}

Hi all,
Just stopping in to share this hilarious video my teaching bud found for our Growth and Changes in Animals unit. It's a super catchy way to help students learn types of amphibians and I'm pretty sure my class is going to FREAK OUT when we watch it!

It's fantastic and makes me laugh {a lot...} - I hope you enjoy. And for the record, I didn't know what a water dog is either {this is me assuming I'm not the only one}, so thanks Wiki for this info. Is "Mudpuppy" a great name, or what?!
- Amanda

Prezi Love

We are off to Amsterdam tonight for about a week. I'm so looking forward to leaving progress reports and anecdotal records behind! Before we go I wanted to share a Prezi that I made to introduce our Growth and Changes in Animals unit - it's all about animal habitats. Have you used Prezi before? Let me just say, it's amazing. Seriously. You should know that it's pretty much the most amazing online program. And free! I found it took me a bit to understand how to use it, but I'm pretty excited to use it for so many other topics and get more creative with the features.

Have a look by clicking the image:

I have a great integration project that I'll be putting into lesson plans soon - persuasive writing, Science, and media. Looking forward to the second quarter!

I'll be back with some photos of chilly Amsterdam.

- Amanda

The Water Cycle

That is one catchy title up there, if I do say so meself!

This week I introduced the Water Cycle and reinforced some of those tricky-for-language-learners terms (con-den-sa-tion; e-vap-or-a-tion - eek) and we did a super kinesthetic activity to reach the expectations: we made water cycle bracelets! I got this idea a long time ago from someone else, but do you think I could remember from whom? Of course not - so I googled it {Fact: "googled" is considered a transitive verb, is an entry in the OED (since 2006, actually!) and was first used by Larry Page himself. To further its merit, it was deemed the "most useful word" in 2002. Thanks, wikipedia! But I digress...}. As it turns out, this a fairly common activity! Ha - and I thought I was being interesting and thinking outside the box. Not to worry, I still think it's a great idea.

I separated yellow, green, white, and blue beads for each student in my class. I only separated one of each colour to ensure sanity maintenance during the lesson - any more and I'm sure I would have had my hands full with kids not following in sequence/stringing to slowly/stringing too quickly/eerrrgg. {I should note that ideally, there would be a clear bead in there to more closely represent the evaporation stage, but my big bin of IKEA beads just didn't have any so - ah, well.}

Yellow represents the sun, which heats up the water on the earth {green - or ideally dark blue, but again, ah, well}, which then evaporates {this would be the clear bead...} and travels up to clouds {white} where the vapour cools and condenses, causing precipitation {light blue}. And, as you know, we start the cycle over again... My students ate it right up! Today during parent-student-teacher conferences I got a few knowing chuckles from parents for still having mine strapped to my wrist. Great success!

I highly recommend using this lesson as a memorable and hands-on activity. Here is the worksheet I made for students to complete.



The cute little border is from Mel at From the Pond.

Happy blogging, all!

Frog Facts (I thought I'd switch up the usual blogger New Year's Activities post for the first week back!)

I don't know what's going on, but this has been the. longest. week. ever. in Kuwait! I've barely noticed the weeks flying past since we got here, but this one, this one decided to hang around! Maybe it's because it was the first full week back. Maybe it's because reports are looming and they know I still have a lot I want to fit in before writing them up -- in that case, thank you, time!

While December was a mad flurry of finishing up units and projects, I was able to find some time in this slow week back to put up some of the work my students did. I have to say I'm pretty happy with it! Their non-fiction frog writing turned out pretty well, even if some didn't quite follow instructions and are were missing crucial elements (like a title!).





It may have been useful to preface that with "My students are EFL learners" (even though it's tough to see the actual writing). At any rate, I LOVE the upside down eyes guy. It's interesting, but the work actually reminds me of the student that created it. (PS - I don't in any way mean to imply that he looks evil.) Isn't it funny the way that happens? We start to see our students in their work... Just one more tiny reason I love my job!



Click HERE for the Frog Facts graphic organizer I made to complete with my students, and HERE for the page topper that I drew up. I originally wanted two frog topper patterns per page (I'm a bit of a softie when it comes to saving paper!), but the day I did this one I was in a bit of a rush so the larger freehand had to do! If ever I redraw it, say, for next year's class, up the new pattern will go.



I hope everyone has had a wonderful week back (or week and a half, like me!). Can hardly believe it's January already...