Tuesday, June 29

Today's Focus:

• • Content and classroom specific work around energy. How can you take what you have learned here back into the classroom?

  • Sustainability - "Conserving Energy" using light bulbs

From the reading (10 Minute Ecologist: "Who Eats Whom?")

• • Definition of decomposers. Fungi and bacteria. Why isn't a worm? Some would put a worm in the category. Similar because they are feeding on dead material rather than live.

  • Energy from other stars? Enough to let plants grow? What about a plant growing inside a dark closet? Where did that energy that allowed it to grow come from since it could not come from the sun/light? It came from the chemical energy of the seed which got its energy from the sun when it was growing.

Classroom specific work: how can I use what is already there and incorporate stuff from this week? How can we deal with student ideas and understandings? Presentations on what you have produced will be tomorrow.

• • The biological systems WA State EALR for 4-5 has been attached at the bottom of this page.

  • The phyical science WA State EALR for 4-5 on Energy has been attached at the bottom of this page.

"Conserving Energy" - what does that mean? When we are told to "conserve energy", what does that mean? Does one of our rules already do that for us?

Using light bulbs to start having this discussion.

Two scenarios to compare and contrast using the energy theater ("From action to to writing") worksheet.

• 1. "Standard" incandescent bulb: Electrical energy in the wire/plug to thermal energy in the blub (or the filament) into light energy in the bulb out to the environment (NOTE: a large portion of the energy into the bulb stays as thermal energy, NOT light energy.)

  2. Compact florescent bulb (CFL). Electrical energy in the wire/plug to light energy in the bulb to light (and some thermal) out to the environment.

Differences between the two: If a 40 Watt incandescent bulb produces the same amount of light as a 9 Watt compact florescent bulb, the majority of energy transfered to the incandescent bulb is transformed into thermal energy and NOT light. For instance: if we assume both bulbs result in 6 Watts of light energy usage (because they have the same brightness), that would suggest that 34 Watts of energy in the incandescent bulb is transformed into thermal whereas only 3 Watts of energy of the CFL is converted into thermal. That energy is "wasted" energy (or more accurately, unusable to us) in the sense that it is not being used to produce light, the assumed reason for having the bulb. For your own curiosity, if you feel the need to understand why a CFL can go directly from electrical to light (whereas incandescent must go from electrical to thermal to light, you can read about incandescence and fluorescence.)

• 1. (Additional) LED bulb.

"Saving Energy" in popular language. Looking at energy resources.

Sun, Oil, Coal, Water/Hydro, Wind, Nuclear, Electricity, Biomass, Natural Gas, Ethanol, Bio-diesel, geothermal, horses, tidal, wood, food

Here is a "real life" example of a possible complex energy transfer diagram for energy usage in the US [Side note: what does "lost energy" mean in that diagram?] (and here is the corresponding article).