SCIENCE BOX OVERVIEW
Kit #29
Name: “Wise About Wind”
Grade Level: K-2
Content Strand: Environmental Science
Content Standard and Description: Natural Resources – Students demonstrate and understand that natural resources include renewable and non-renewable materials and energy. All organisms, including human, use resources to maintain and improve their existence, and the use of resources can have both positive and negative consequences.
Summary: By using a wide variety of learning techniques and tools such as a hairdryer, beads, cups, and a bicycle pump, students will learn all about the effects of wind in their everyday lives. This kit includes everything teachers need to help their kids learn about wind power and its benefits and consequences.
Learning Cycle Lesson Plans: Here is the list of the lesson plans in this kit.
1. “What is Wind?” – An introductory lesson which will enable students to understand that air is everywhere, and that moving air is wind. Students will trap air inside a disposable Ziploc bag to “feel” air. This will serve as a basis for upcoming lessons.
2. “Using and Measuring Wind” – In this lesson, students will build an anemometer to measure the strength of wind in various locations around the school campus. Students will also be using created wind to push a variety of objects across a flat surface.
3. “How the Wind Blows…” – Students will learn that wind energy can be used to enhance our daily lives, and that wind may have positive and negative consequences.
4. “Spinning in the Wind” – Students will gain an understanding of how wind energy can be used to save the environment, and that scientists are currently working to develop strategies to utilize wind power.
What to Expect: By the end of second grade, teachers can expect their students to know how to investigate and describe how some resources can be used and reused, and to be able to describe the various resources that provide the necessary things that are used by people in their daily lives.
Evaluations: Here is what other teachers have said about this box.
1. “I used it in my classroom. The directions were excellent and I basically followed them. Can I please have it again next year?”
2. “It was so wonderful to have everything put together and organized. The students loved the hands on lessons.”