Lesson Plan: Transferring Energy Science
This lesson plan includes the objectives, prerequisites, and exclusions of the lesson teaching students how to identify the energy categories involved in various energy transfers and understand how energy is conserved in transfers.
Objectives
Students will be able to
- recognize that an energy transfer can be a decrease in an object’s energy of one category that is accompanied by an increase in an object’s energy of another category,
- recognize that an energy transfer can be a decrease in an object’s energy of one category that is accompanied by an increase in another object’s energy of the same or of a different category,
- recognize that when an energy transfer involves multiple objects, an energy category is associated with the transfer of energy between objects that is not one of the energy categories associated with isolated objects,
- understand that the categories of the energy transferred between objects are heat, light, sound, and electrical energy,
- recognize that the total decrease in energy categories in a transfer is equal to the total increase in energy categories in the transfer,
- identify useful energy categories associated with objects.
Prerequisites
Students should already be familiar with
- what properties of objects correspond to the following energy categories: kinetic, gravitational potential, elastic potential, electrical potential, thermal, magnetic, and chemical energy,
- the fact that for any given category, objects can have their energy increased or decreased.
Exclusions
Students will not cover
- units of energy,
- numerical calculations using energy,
- the term work,
- microstructures of objects that correspond to magnetic, chemical, elastic potential, or thermal energy,
- the term system.