11/4 Class

Today in class the last two groups presented their midterm projects. The first group's lesson plan was about a mystery box containing living or non-living things. The students place their hand in a hole in the box and feel the object to decide if the elements of the object are living or non-living. The second group made an Animal Book to teach students about the different elements of animals. Such as if they have feathers, fur, or scales, if they swim or walk, etc. Each student then would make their own book and describe different animals. After the presentations Dr. Ezrailson then began to discuss thermal energy. Thermal energy deals with temperature and heat. It is the total of all the kinetic potential energy of all the particles in a substance. We learned that as temperature increases, so does the thermal energy because the kinetic energy of the particles increased. We learned that some things heat up and cool down faster than others. An example that Dr. Ezrailson talked about was that water has an insulating effect on land. Such as Michigan being surrounded by lakes. It takes a longer amount of time for the temperature to decrease in Michigan than it does in South Dakota because it is surrounded by lakes and South Dakota is not. We learned that water has a high specific heat because it has more density and the molecules are close together. Also, we learned how to calculate changes in thermal energy. This class was very informative about thermal energy. I liked it because I had little previous knowledge about it. After today's lesson I feel much more confident in teaching it to my future students.