We’ve learned so much about energy!

Remember where the motion, thermal and electrical energy investigations began? The class looked at a video montage of 12 snapshots of everyday life: a person riding a bike, a bird in flight, an apple, a plant, a kettle whistling on a stove. You elicited your students’ initial ideas about energy in everyday life when you asked them “Do you think that energy is part of any of these scenarios?” They had lots of ideas but lacked a framework for thinking about energy systematically and a language and set or representations to talk about it.

Energy is abstract, you can’t see energy. That’s a challenge but nonetheless, your students have new ways to think and talk about energy and they do so with confidence! They can use the Model of Energy they created together. For any of the 12 scenes in the montage they can ask (and answer) the Energy Tracking Lens questions. They can use energy cubes or bars or diagrams or words to tell an energy story that goes well beyond a “yes” or “no” response to the question “Is energy part of this scene from everyday life?” They may still find the apple or the plant a challenge (they haven’t yet tackled energy in living systems) but their thinking will be more reasoned and systematic.

This wrap up returns to the phenomena that launched the units and invites students to apply their new understanding of energy and to use tools to communicate these ideas to others. If you ask your class if they think about energy differently now than they did initially, the answer is most likely Yes!

There’s more than one way to wrap-up the energy units. The wrap up activity described here is one suggestion. You will have ideas of your own!

Describe the wrap up challenge.

Explain that to wrap up the energy units, the class will return to the video montage, 12 video clips that they viewed in the very first class. Remind them that if they thought energy was part of any of the 12 scenarios, they put an “E” next to a thumbnail image from the clip. They now have experience, resources and tools to think about an energy story in each scenario. Their task is:

“Select one of the 12 scenes from the video montage and “tell the energy story.”

• You can choose to have students work individually or in pairs.
• Students can work on either paper or whiteboards. Have energy cubes available.
• Be sure the Energy Tracking Lens questions and Model of Energy are visible to all.

Sharing energy stories

After they complete their energy stories, individuals or small groups can share their energy stories. You might ask them to comment on how their understanding of energy has changed, what surprised them as they learned about energy or what questions they have now.