Big Idea 10: Forms of Energy

Students will be working through a lesson pertaining to a 7th grade standard that allows for students to observe that light is reflected, refracted, and or absorbed.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will be able to observe, explain, and model reflection and refraction through a series of inquiry light stations. Students will engage and perform different challenges to obtain knowledge about how light reflects off of surfaces and how light is refracted when changing mediums.

Type: Lesson Plan

The student will collect, analyze, and interpret data to develop an understanding of how the speeds of sound and electromagnetic waves change through different mediums. Students will simulate and construct and explanation relating to how sound and electromagnetic waves move at different speeds through different mediums.

Type: Lesson Plan

While working in groups, students will be provided various materials to design models that illustrate the refraction, reflection, and absorption of light.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will explore the range of wavelengths that comprise the electromagnetic spectrum of radiation from the sun and associate wavelength with frequency and energy. Students will also be able to identify common uses of Electromagnetic Radiation.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will use a spectroscope to observe the color spectrum of different colors of light. They will observe white, red, blue, yellow, purple, orange and green lights by placing a colored film (which absorbs other colors of white light from the flashlight and transmits light the color of the filter) in front of a strong white flashlight bulb.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will use dominoes to model the speed through a mechanical medium in the solid, liquid, and gas phase.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson plan students learn about the property of light: refraction. The lesson begins with an engage demo placing a pencil in a glass of water. The students will be able to witness the effects of refraction. After answering a few questions the students are split into partners for the explore portion of the lesson. The students place a penny on the bottom of an opaque cup then step back until they cannot see the penny. The partner then slowly pours water into the cup until the penny comes into site (record data). The teacher leads the class in a classroom discussion about their findings. The teacher then explains what refraction is and why it happens. For the elaborate portion of the lesson students are asked to explain how to spearfish from a riverbank. There is a short quiz for the summative assessment.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will review the main interactions of light followed by a short investigation to understand how matter gets its color.

Type: Lesson Plan

Light travels at an incredible fast speed and it allows us to see everything around us. It travels as a wave which interacts with different types of matter in a different way. This lesson is designed for 7^th grade students to investigate the different ways in which light waves interact with matter. The type of matter depends on which state the object is in - solid, liquid or gas.
Note: The lesson covers only part of the standard addressed.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will discover that light waves and sound waves move at different speeds through different mediums through inquiry, observation and collaboration with peers.

Time needed to complete this lesson:
2 Block Periods
3 Regular Periods

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson focuses on the standards that require students to understand:

• What is light and how does it travel?
• What is color and how do we see specific colors?

In this lesson students will participate in an observation activity that involves the teacher becoming the boogie man and wearing a specific colored cape. The students will observe the boogie man ( the teacher ) in the room without any sunlight or light from other sources on. Then class will complete a formative assessment using four corners and end the class with a exit slip as a summative.

Type: Lesson Plan

This is a lesson to address the visible light portion of the Electromagnetic Spectrum. Students will construct and test prisms, identify the visible light spectrum created from prisms, as well as read informational text, summarize, and share with peers.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson students will investigate how the various surfaces have different albedo values. Students will analyze the difference between radiation, conduction, and convection, the three mechanisms by which heat is transferred through Earth's system. Students will engage in collecting data, graphing their measurements, and presenting their findings to the class.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this MEA, students will analyze data to determine which type of wave in a lab setting is best suited to power a toy car. Then students will analyze a set of data using data from going outside and using electromagnetic waves from the sun.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will analyze sets of data to determine what construction company proposal would be best suited for building an outdoor concert venue. Students will need to consider sound quality to the concert patrons, disturbances to the local community, and safety.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students exploring how light travels, how heat moves and how it all affects temperature will find this activity fun and exciting. They will have to determine which type of panel to choose for a fictitious greenhouse - glass or plastic and how much light, heat and moisture is best to let in - determined by whether the material is opaque, translucent or transparent. This is a fun challenge but applicable also to the environmental demands we are currently facing.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom.

Type: Lesson Plan

Student groups rotate through four stations to examine light energy behavior: refraction, magnification, prisms and polarization.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students explore how light and sound waves travel in different materials.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students learn about the electromagnetic spectrum.

Type: Lesson Plan

This investigation explores the effect of distance and albedo on energy absorption.

Type: Lesson Plan

Using UV beads, students will observe and draw energy.

Type: Lesson Plan

The purpose of the experiment is to predict and observe how light reacts to different objects using three different light sources. Predictions will be recorded and then each item will be tested with each light source to determine if the prediction is correct. Discussion will follow why or why not a certain reaction occurred and if it can be seen in other circumstances.

Type: Lesson Plan

The students will compare/contrast the colors that make up white light in terms of their arrangement in the visible light section of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Content statements:

• White light is made up of all the colors of light and they are organized in the visible light section of the electromagnetic spectrum according to their wavelengths.
• Red has the longest wavelengths and violet has the shortest.

Type: Lesson Plan

The students will identify the various types of radiation that come from the Sun and compare/contrast the types of radiation in terms of their arrangement in the electromagnetic spectrum.

Content statements:

• The waves that come from the Sun are organized in the electromagnetic spectrum according to their wavelengths.
• Radio waves have the longest wavelengths and gamma rays have the shortest.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will be able to describe the refraction of light.

Content statement
Refraction is the bending of a light's path as it moves through one medium to another.

Type: Lesson Plan

Light can be reflected, refracted or absorbed. Learn how light interacts as it strikes various objects in this interactive tutorial.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Sounds are caused by vibrations. Learn how sound moves as compressional waves and travels at different speeds through different mediums in this interactive tutorial.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Explore the components of solar radiation by examining infrared, visible, and ultraviolet light in this interactive tutorial.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Dr. George Cohen discusses a variety of skin treatments that utilize electromagnetic radiation, including lasers, UV light, and x-rays.

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Professional/Enthusiast

A sculptor explains how he creates illusions using light, mirrors, and other tools.

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Professional/Enthusiast

Get focused and learn a little about bird photography and the lenses used to create beautiful images! Produced with funding from the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs.

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Professional/Enthusiast

No need to sugar coat it: making candy involves math and muscles. Learn how light refraction and exponential growth help make candy colors just right!

Type: Perspectives Video: Professional/Enthusiast

Let this teacher transfer some ideas about teaching wave and material properties to you. Then pass it on to someone else.

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Teaching Idea

In this hands on activity, students can use cooking oil and glass rods (and other rods) to demonstrate the refraction of light.

Type: Teaching Idea

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The article outlines the scientific mindset that led William Herschel to arrive at the discovery of infrared light, an unexpected consequence of an experiment he was conducting. More generally, the article demonstrates the scientific process, from hypothesis to observation and from inference to conclusion.

Type: Text Resource

This is a very interesting web site about the electromagnetic spectrum. It gives great background information and examples on the different types of waves.

Type: Text Resource

• Study the relation between the speed of light and the refractive index of the medium it passes through.
• Choose from a collection of materials with known refractive indices and obtain the speed of light as it passes through.
• Learn why light-years are used as an astronomical measurement of distance.

Type: Tutorial

This resource helps the user learn the three primary colors that are fundamental to human vision, learn the different colors in the visible spectrum, observe the resulting colors when two colors are added, and learn what white light is. A combination of text and a virtual manipulative allows the user to explore these concepts in multiple ways.

Type: Tutorial

The user will learn the three primary subtractive colors in the visible spectrum, explore the resulting colors when two subtractive colors interact with each other and explore the formation of black color.

Type: Tutorial

This is an interactive graphic that visually represents the law of angle of reflection. Users may select a wavelength to change the color of the light and can also set the angle of reflection.

Type: Virtual Manipulative

The students will combine the colors red, blue, and green to make colors from all across the color spectrum.

Type: Virtual Manipulative

This resource is a virtual manipulative that allows the user to change the angle of incidence of light and select from a variety of materials, each of which has a different index of refraction, to demonstrate how light may be refracted.

Type: Virtual Manipulative

This tool is useful for introducing students to the concept that light or electromagnetic waves pass through different substances at different speeds and in different directions.

Type: Virtual Manipulative