Matter and Energy

Notes for possible future lesson(s) about Matter and Energy

THIS LESSON WAS NOT TAUGHT THE FIRST YEAR - KEEPING NOTES HERE TO POTENTIALLY DEVELOP IT INTO A FUTURE LESSON.

"Trees are the way we listen in on the conversation between cosmic energy and earthly matter."

- The Cryptonaturalist

“…what is [a plant], after all, but light transformed by relationship?”

– Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

Goals/Objectives

• Students will understand that we are part of and depend on ecosystems for survival (food, air, water)

• 5-PS3-1. Use models to describe that energy in animals’ food (used for body repair, growth, motion, and to maintain body warmth) was once energy from the sun.

• 5-LS1-1. Support an argument that plants get the materials they need for growth chiefly from air and water.

• 5-LS2-1. Develop a model to describe the movement of matter among plants, animals, decomposers, and the environment.

CONCEPTS to understand for instructors:

• Energy is neither created nor destroyed, but it can change form (internal, potential, kinetic). Heat and Light are forms of energy. Energy flows through our systems, powering them, and escaping.

  • When we burn a log, we are releasing the stored energy in the C-C and C-H bonds in the form of heat and light. They are dissipated into the atmosphere, but they don't "disappear" - though some heat and light is lost from the Earth system into space, where it is further disappated. Earth is not a closed system.

  • When a log is decomposed instead of burned, the same amount of energy is released, but over a much longer period of time!

  • When we eat food, we get energy stored in the food (in those bonds that hold molecules together - through the process of cellular respiration). We use some of that energy to build new molecules (growth/maintenance) and that energy is stored in those new bonds. We lose most of the energy into the atmosphere through heat.

  • Only about 10% of the energy from each level of the trophic (food) pyramid is passed to the next level through consumption - the rest us used for growth and/or released as heat.

    • This is why there are more producers than consumers, and more primary consumers than secondary consumers, and so on. Each level of the pyramid has only 10% of the energy of the level below it.

• Matter cycles - while energy flows, matter cycles - molecules are broken apart and rebuilt and reused, kind of like Legos :)

  • MOST of the matter in living things on Earth is from carbon molecules - we are "carbon-based lifeforms."

  • That carbon all originated from carbon dioxide (CO2) gas from air!

  • Only photosynthetic organisms, such as green plants and blue-green algae, can do this.

    • They use energy from the sun to turn CO2+H2O into C6H12O2 - that's a glucose (simple sugar) molecule. To balance the equation, you need 6CO2+6H2O to make one glucose molecule, and there are leftovers! 6 molecules of O2 are left, which plants give off to the atmosphere (no subscripts on Google Sites - sorry!)

    • Plants then use the stored energy (in the bonds of the glucose - released when they are broken) to build new molecules, like cellulose - long carbon chains that make up most of plants and even trees - wood is cellulose!

  • The matter that passes to herbivores (primary consumers) and decomposers is re-used by them, and the matter that passes from herbivores to carnivores (secondary consumers) and decomposers, is re-used again, and so on.

Themed Matter and Energy Lesson from BEETLES with variations (NEW! click link)

Lesson Structure Ideas

Could be done over 3 lessons:

Start and End with Matter and Energy Diagram (BEETLES)

Producers (Plants) / photosynthesis / transpiration / Carbon sinks / how do you go from seed to tree? (where does the matter come from?) (CO2+H2O) / how is a log like a battery? (stored energy, released when burned, also releases matter - CO2+H2O) - can do LAWS / Mystery of Life lesson / Thank a leaf, Transpiration experiment, and photosynthesis "card game" or "play" (6 kids are CO2, 6 are Water, 2 can be "Chlora" and "Phyll", rest can be the Sun's Energy - The water students have 2 H cards and 1 O card, the Carbon Dioxide Students have 1 C and 2 Os, Clora and Phyll collect the cards and use the energy to rearrange them to make sugar C6H12O6 (if there are at least 5 E cards, they can use those to represent the bonds between Carbons in the chain, where energy is stored). But wait - they have leftover molecules 12 Os! What can they make? 6 O2 molecules! (draw out equation - they just did chemistry!) <-- the problem with just about any photosynthesis lesson is it is NOT very nature-centered. That's why I like the LAWS/Mystery of Life/Thank a Leaf sequence, because at least it ends with that!

Could combine this with journaling - several plant ones, like Timeline, My Secret Plant, etc.

Consumers (Animals) / food chains / food pyramid / Herbivores/Carnivores/Omnivores / Predator/Prey/Scavenger / matter and energy are passed, energy is also used to grow (build more animal from matter - the energy is now stored in the animal (in the new bonds between the new molecules created)), released as heat / matter is also released - how? (See "Bunny Question" below - can do this during a Walk and Talk discussion, play a food chain game...

Decomposers (FBI) / Decomposers and Soil lesson - do BEETLES Decomposition Mission - great nature-centered lesson! Be sure to watch the video - Kevin Beals is awesome!

The Bunny Question (~10 minutes)

1. Ask and discuss the bunny question. Hold up the question you wrote on a manila folder, a big sheet of paper, or on the whiteboard and pose it to students. Give them a chance to Turn & Share about their ideas and then to share in the group.

2. Ask: “In one year, an 8 pound rabbit may eat and drink ~400 pounds of plants and water. About 140 pounds come out as poop and pee. What happens to the other 260 pounds?”

3. Listen to students’ ideas. There are a variety of possible correct answers, as well as one very common incorrect answer—The matter in the rabbit was burned off into energy. Don’t correct students if they give that answer (yet!). Accept all ideas. Probe to find out more about students’ thinking. Ask students to share the reasoning behind their ideas and to agree and disagree respectfully. Ask: “What’s your evidence for that?” or “What makes you think that?”

4. After some students share their ideas (and before the momentum slows down), bring the discussion to a close. It’s more than okay if students are still scratching their heads. Tell them that they’ll learn a bit more about what happens when something eats and that this will help them answer the bunny question.

This is part of a larger lesson - coming soon from BEETLES!

Excerpts from a conversation with Kevin Beals (BEETLES)

Maggie: We want to look at this from an ecosystem perspective - emphasizing that people are and have always been a part of the ecosystem, affecting and being affected by it. We depend upon functioning ecosystems for our survival just as much as other species do. And looking at how Native people "tended the wild" for millennia (and how we are only recently beginning to understand indigenous land management practices, like using fire) Maybe see if the teachers could show the PBS series Tending the Wild.

As a science teacher, I would still like a focus on ecosystems, science practices, environmental literacy, etc, but Native perspectives are definitely an important part of that and highly valuable!

Kevin: BEETLES has a resource that is very close to publication: Ecosystems Theme Field Experience. It includes flexible options for experiences 2-3 hours in length or 3-6 hours in length (or shorter or longer), with the options of including matter and energy. Useful for planning a series of hikes on the theme of ecosystems.

Maggie: I added a thing related to matter and energy on the first day of our science camp - we did INIWIRMO with some seed pods, then looked at the seeds, then the instructor posed the question to the students "how does it get from this (holding up seed) to this (pointing to the tree)?" (maybe I learned that at BEETLES?) It's a great leading phenomenon for kids to consider and connects to that learner.org Annenberg Private Universe/Minds of Their Own study with the Harvard graduates not understanding that most of the weight of a log comes from air (CO2). I <3 Constructivism! Anyway, another related phenomenon I had them do is how is this (hold up a log/piece of firewood) like this (hold up a battery)? Stuff to get them thinking!!

After those questions (or just the first one) we just did the good old "Mystery of Life" LAWS in film containers, then thanked a leaf afterward with breathy Elvis voices...

A cool thing about understanding where the carbon in cellulose comes from is the tie-in with climate change and trees as carbon sinks... which could lead to a whole lesson on calculating the carbon offset of a tree, but that may be too advanced for 5th grade! But maybe...

Kevin: BEETLES also has a professional learning session for instructors on ecosystems, matter and energy, also close to publication, that has a puzzler for instructors about the matter that makes up a tree, inspired many years ago by that Annenberg video. We have an evidence sheet to go with it to inspire their ideas to help it be learner-centered. Then we discuss the opposite direction with "the bunny question" - about how lots more matter goes into a bunny in a year than appears to exit it, and where might that other matter have gone? We suggest focusing on matter with kids first - energy and matter together can be confusing - then adding energy into the mix, if the kids seem ready. Eg: many think the matter from the bunny burns off into energy - which is a very common misconception combining erroneously combining matter and energy. 5th grade is pretty young, and if it was me I might just focus hard on ecoystems and matter with them.

It's going to be included in the Ecosystems, Matter (and Energy) Model Field Experience, which will be published soon. It's meant to be followed up with the Card Hike (Ecosystems, Matter and Energy card set), which is here: http://beetlesproject.org/resources/for-field-instructors/card-hike/ Here it is excerpted:

The Bunny Question. (~10 minutes) - SEE Matter and Energy under Lessons!