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| Here you will find
all of the work we have done on our unit covering Air and Water in the
Environment. I will try to include a brief explanation of the lesson,
as well as any worksheets we have used. Remember that the lesson plans are found on the grade 2 page. |
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Lesson 1 Introduction
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We started our unit be discussing that we are going to be
learning about air and water. We related this to what we had
previously learned about liquids and gases. As a group we then
brainstormed a list of things that we could use to represent air and water.
all of these things were written out on chart paper with the heading "Air
and Water in the Environment." Using that list as reference we made a
title page for our unit.
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Lesson 2 Movement and Energy
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At the start of class a series of pictures were laid our for
us to see. We were then presented with the challenge of figuring out
something that was common to all of the pictures - they all move! We
talked about the movement in each picture and the concept that this movement
comes from energy. Our worksheet today was a fill in the blanks note.
We took up the answers at the end of class.
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Lesson 3 Finding Movement
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Out for a walk today. We quietly wondered the halls,
stopping at multiple locations to sit and observe. For our
observations we were looking for things that move. We stopped at the
second floor windows, the gym and the office/library. As we were at
each of these locations we wrote down things that we saw moving. When
we returned to class we tried to determine the type of energy that made each
of these things move.
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Lesson 4 Things That Use Air and Water Energy
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Today we kept with our concept of movement and energy, but we
brought in the air and water on which we will be focusing. We used the
computers, and on Kidpix we drew something that uses air of water energy to
move. After drawing, we printed our picture and glued it to a
worksheet. We then explained what we had drawn. For those of us
who finished early we had a wordsearch we worked on.
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Lesson 5 Natural vs Man-Made
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We started by hearing the words "Natural" and "Man-Made" and
we tried to guess at what they mean. After discussing it as a class we
determined that Natural means something that would exist without humans
and Man-Made is something that would not exist without humans.
We then classified the types of energy that we know about into natural
energy (wind, water, wood, solar) and man-made energy (gasoline, oil,
natural gas). On our worksheet today we had to sort things into
natural and man-made. Teacher Questions Worksheet Answers
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Lesson 6 Renewable vs Non-Renewable
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Our discussion today started with a car, and the fact that a
car uses gasoline to move. We took that one step further and discussed
what happens to the gasoline after it is used - it is burned and can not be
used again. We then had a similar conversation about a windmill using
air to spin. When the wind is used to make the windmill work it does
mean that the wind is gone forever. Gasoline is a Non-Renewable type
of energy. Non-Renewable energy sources are used up and cannot be
replaced. Wind is not used up, it is a Renewable energy.
Renewable energy sources are not used up and can be replaced. We
used our worksheet today to sort types of energy into renewable and
non-renewable.
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Lesson 7 The Wind Cycle
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To start class there was a fan sitting on a desk. We
discussed what we use a fan for (to move air) and how it works (electricity
spins a motor that has shaped blades attached to it, the blades pull the air
through and we feel the air). We then talked about wind being moving
air as well (but it does not need electricity). This led us to a
discussion on how wind is formed:
On our worksheet we labelled a diagram showing the wind cycle and wrote a paragraph explaining it.
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Lesson 8 Water Cycle Video
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Today we watched a video: Bill Nye the Science Guy -
The Water Cycle. After the video was over we took the time to discuss
some of the key learning and interesting points (have you had a glass of
dinosaur split today?) I managed to find the video on youtube, but it
is in three parts. Video Part 1 Video Part 2 Video Part 3
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Lesson 9 The Water Cycle
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We reviewed the video from last class, we talked about the
fact that the water we have today is the same water that was on earth
millions of years ago, we talked about precipitation being water falling
from the sky, and we talked about the water cycle:
We took some extra time to discuss how water is released from plants into the air and then we started on our worksheet. Similar to the wind cycle, we labelled a diagram and wrote a note about the water cycle.
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Lesson 10 Wood Energy
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Our unit of study is air and water, however we looked at wood
today because both air and water play an important role in the life cycle of
a tree. Trees use water for growth, and also they release water vapour
into the air as part of the water cycle. Trees "breath" in carbon
dioxide and "breath" out oxygen, which we need to survive. Air also
helps trees by spreading seeds for new growth. We documented these
facts on our worksheet and cut out some pictures to show the life cycle of a
tree.
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Lesson 11 Pinwheels - Build and Play
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Over the next two periods we will be building pinwheels.
Our first step was to colour the panels on a template. We then cut out
he panels to form the blades. Our last step was to use a push pin to
attach the pinwheel to a piece of jinx-wood. Once we were done making
the craft we took some time to play with it. We were encouraged to
find multiple ways to make it spin.
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Lesson 12 Pinwheels - Questions
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Today we were to document some of our discoveries with the
pinwheels we made last class. We started by talking about what we did
and what we were able to make the pinwheels do. We then sat down with
a series of questions.
Quiz - We will be having a quiz at the start of lesson 14. Today a note went home with all of the quiz questions. Make sure you study.
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Lesson 13 Review
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We used today's lesson to review the material we have covered
so far. The topics we discussed were:
We used the remaining time in class for studying our worksheets and quizzing each other.
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Lesson 14 Quiz
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Today we wrote our quiz. The quiz took most of the
period, but any left over time was used to get caught up on any incomplete
work.
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Lesson 15 Melting and Evaporation
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We started today by going outside and collecting snow in
plastic cups. When we came back into the school we watched our snow
melt in the cup as we discussed melting. We then used this concept to
set up an experiment involving evaporation. We put 100 ml of water in
7 graduated cylinders and then covered them with a
variety of materials (plastic wrap, paper towels, etc). We then
predicted how much water would be left if we let it sit on the window ledge for one week.
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Lesson 16 Describing Air and Water
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Today's task was to describe air and water. Before
doing so we learned how to describe something fully by looking at a simple
image. This image was of a face with a hand beside it and a light bulb
above it. The image was to represent the five senses (face and hand)
and our prior knowledge (the light bulb). We choose one feature of the
image {nose} and answered a questions using that feature {What does air
smell like?} After we finished describing air using that feature we
put a checkmark over that part of the diagram. When the diagram was
covered with checkmarks we know we were done. We used this technique
to describe both air and water. In doing so we discussed the
possibility that air and water both have taste, but we are just used to that
taste, so we don't notice it.
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Lesson 17 Uses for Air and Water
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We were not in class today, we were in space! We landed
on a planet, on which there were aliens who could actually speak English.
in talking to them we discovered they did not understand the words air and
water. We tried to explain to them what air and water are by
describing them and stating some uses for them.
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Lesson 18 Evaporation
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Today we revisited our graduated cylinders that have been sitting on the
window ledge. We sat down together and looked at each of them.
In looking at them we discussed how some had evaporated, and others had not.
We then related this to our absorbency experiment we did in our last unit
(lesson 18 in Solids and Liquids). On our prediction sheet from last
week we answered some questions about our evaporation experiment.
Finishing up this work took the remainder of this class and most of another. During today's class we were told that we will be writing a test next week. We were given a review sheet with all of the things that we have learned about air and water.
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Lesson 19 Work Period
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We used today's lesson to get caught up on all of our work
for this unit. As we finished out work we also looked at the answer
sheets to be sure we had all of the information. In completing our use
of air and water sheet we were shown descriptions of air and water that we
could copy.
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Lesson 20 Review
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We used today's period to review for our test next class.
To do this we played Jeopardy! If you wish to play the Jeopardy game
at home you may download it below. It requires that you have Microsoft
PowerPoint on your computer. The file is quite large, so it will be
deleted after we are done this unit. If you wish to have a copy for
yourself, please be sure you save it.
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Lesson 21 Unit Test
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Today (and the following class) we wrote out unit test on Air
and Water in the Environment. However, this is not the end of our
unit, we will continue to look at water for another week or so.
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Lesson 22 Water Use
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We started today's class by making a list of all the ways we
use water at home. We then discussed how often we did the things on
the list. From there we looked at a pop bottle, so that we could see
how much water 2 L is. We then learned the following stats:
We were then assigned a task, we are to track our water use at home. We have a tracking sheet that we are to bring home and we are to use it for the next week. We also have homework for tonight. For next class we have to count all of the water sources found around our home. This is all explained in a letter that we brought home today.
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Lesson 23 Water Availability
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At the start of class today we discussed our homework - we
have many more water sources than we thought. We were then asked a
questions: "Do you think it is normal to have this many water sources
in a home?" After discussing the question for a while we read a
section of a book titled "A Life Like Mine: how Children Live Around
the World." This book helped put into perspective how lucky we in
North America are. We talked about situations that we had been in
where water was not available (camping, long car rides, etc) and tried to
compare it to the situations we read about in our book.
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Lesson 24 Water Pollution
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"Where does water go after we use it?" was the question that
started class today. Water goes down the drain, but we talked about
the fact that it is not only water that gets washed down the drain when we
use it. We put soap and dirt down the drain, which pollutes the water.
We talked about the fact that factories cause even more pollution in the way
they use water. To help us understand what can happen when water
becomes polluted, we looked at a series of pictures on a webpage.
These pictures showed just how bad water pollution can get. We
finished class by doing a worksheet on water pollution.
Remember to bring your water tracking sheet back to class.
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Lesson 25 Water Conservation
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Today's two period lesson started by talking about the
results of our water tracking activity. We took a rough average of the
results to discover that we use A LOT of water each week, and this is in
winter, so we are not filling pools or watering gardens. After viewing
these results, our last task for the unit was to look at water conservation
methods. We were shown an example of a Japanese toilet...yes, a
toilet. Japanese toilets are designed to save water. We used
this example to inspire us to come up with our own idea of a way we could
save water, either by changing how something is done, or by inventing
something new. When we were done, we presented our ideas to the class.
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| This concludes our unit on Air and Water. Our next unit is Movement. | ||||||
