Audio Podcast
Good day, this podcast serves as your lesson development guide in helping primary school children (ages 4 to 6) in understanding the principles behind experimentation, critical thinking and problem solving when it comes to the composition of different types of materials. At the end of this guide it is expected that you will have all the tools you need in imparting valuable lessons involving material composition and structural integrity with a particular emphasis on the development of information outcomes.
Materials to be used
- Projector
- Various slides with pictures of objects printed on them
- Box with Various Objects in it
Lesson 1: Material Composition
Material Identification
In this section you are to introduce students to the different consistencies of various materials. This means that the terms: hard, soft, thin, thick, slippery, sandy etc. are going to be used. The end goal of this particular exercise is to enable them to immediately identify and verbalize the different types of consistencies and know how such attributes interact with each other.
There are a variety of ways in which this can be done, however, the prevailing and most popular method to date used by educators has been to arrange students into groups and provide them with the necessary materials to start the lesson.
Lesson Strategy
- First off, divide the class evenly into 4 to 6 groups depending on the amount of students.
- Provide each student group with a shoe box and tell them not to open it. It is at this point that you will inform your students that what will be done is a type of competition with the winning group getting some candy. This will create a significant amount of interest and hype in the lesson and should be conducive in ensuring that the lesson goes well.
- Once the commotion (and there will definitely be some degree of commotion) has died down begin the lesson by using a projector and showing several photos of different types of objects. These objects can be anything you wish, however, they must conform to the concept of composition wherein each object shown has a different composition to the one shown before it.
- Create a situation where the each individual team competes to see which team can accurately identify each object with points being awarded for accuracy.
- Once all the students in the class can accurately identify each object in the slides it is at this point that you introduce the concept of composition such as: “a rock is hard”, “a pillow is soft”, “a cup is smooth” etc.
- Do be reminded that since certain objects have more than one characteristic (i.e. a rock can be hard and smooth) it is important to inform students about this and help them identify and differentiate between various characteristics.
- Once students are able to discern and identify the characteristics of objects via visual referencing it is now necessary to have them be able to physically know the different characteristics and compositions of object.
- At this stage of the lesson have everybody in the room close their eyes and have the person closest to the box reach in the box and get the nearest object. After which have them circulate the box to each member of the group with each one of them getting an object from inside the box, all while keeping their eyes closed.
- Have each member of the group describe via the terms you utilized in the visual activity the type of object they have in their hand all while keeping their eyes closed. Have them guess what type of object it is via the physical characteristics they discern. Award points for accurate guesses for each correct answer.
- After this stage, have everyone open their eyes and examine the objects they have in their hands and have them check whether the object they guessed is similar to what they are holding. Have each member of the group interchange what objects they have in their hands in order for all individuals present to know and understand the “feel” of different objects.
- Once all groups have sufficiently developed an understanding of the physical characteristics of each object have them experiment with the different objects by either dropping it, attempting to pull the objects apart or other forms of experimentation.
Important Notice: inform your students that they are absolutely not allowed to throw the objects at each other or attempt to eat them! Remember this is primary school class and as such some of these students can become rather rambunctious or naughty. Before letting them experiment instill the absolute necessity of following the guidelines of the experiment as “little scientists”.
Ending the Lesson
End the lesson by conducting an object composition lesson where the students have to be able to identify the composition of an object by either looking at the object or knowing its characteristics via verbal memory. Not only that, you also need to have your students determine what would happen to an object if it were exposed to a certain circumstance and why this occurred. For example, this can consist of questions such as what will happen if you tear paper, drop a rock, or pull apart clay etc. By having them determine what will happen and why this occurs this facilitates better critical thinking processes and enables them to more accurately develop the fundamentals of cause and effect logic. In the end, through this activity you will be able to help students accurately and effectively determine an objects composition and the way it interacts via a variety of circumstances.
Rewarding your Students
At the end of the lesson do not forget to reward the winning team with the promised candy. Make sure that the candy given is of course safe for all members to consume (i.e. make sure they do not have any allergies to specific types of sweets). By rewarding students for good performance this sets a great precedent for future lessons wherein the children involved will be more involved due to the development of a certain degree of competition among the members.
Lesson 2: Structural Integrity
In the previous lesson you introduced your students to the concept of material composition and enabled them to experiment with the various materials you provided in order to understand how particular materials react when placed under different scenarios. In this lesson you will teach students about the concept of structural integrity through practical demonstrations and experimentation.
Presenting the lesson
First and foremost, you will need to present students with the concept of structural integrity which builds up on the knowledge that they were taught in the previous lesson. In this particular case you will conduct a brief review of experimental process done yesterday regarding what will happen to particular objects when subjected to external forces (i.e. what happens when you drop a rock, a piece of clay etc.).
It is at this point that you add another dimension to the lesson by having students determine what will happen to an object should you place it within another object. At this point you take out a piece of round clay, drop it on the floor and show to your students that upon falling it became deformed. After which you will reform it back into a ball, place it into a small cardboard box, then drop the box. Take out the piece of clay and show it to your students while indicating that it is unharmed. By doing so, you introduce the concept of utilizing the physical composition of one object to protect the structural integrity of another.
Materials to be used
- Newspaper
- Small cardboard boxes
- Styrofoam
- Bubble wrap
- Old cloth
- Large red pail
- Meter stick
- Eggs
Creating a practical demonstration
At this point you will create a practical demonstration in front of your class by having all the students come to the front and observe you place a meter stick in a large red pail and dropping an egg from the top of the meter stick. There will be a certain degree of excitement after doing this so wait for the students to calm down then explain how the composition of the egg, which is brittle, interacted with the composition of the ground, which is hard, resulting in the egg getting broken.
Creating another competition
At this point you will explain to the students that another competition will be held wherein candy will once again be given to the winners. The goal of the competition is to create a similar protective covering around the egg as seen in the case of the piece of clay being placed in the cardboard box so that when the egg is dropped it will not break. The students will only be limited to the materials provided and the end result should be small enough so as to fit within the large red pail when dropped.
Starting the lesson
Once again separate the class into 4 to 6 groups and provide them with the necessary materials to conduct the experiment.
Important Notice: Do not allow the students to play with the egg. Remind them that this is a competition and that they only get one chance to do this. This prevents the possibility of potentially having the contents of the eggs all over the floors of the classroom which is a violation of several healthcare policies.
Observe and Comment
During the experimentation process observe and comment on the results created by individual teams and while doing so explain to them the different aspects of material compositions and how they interact with one another. The end goal is for them to realize that different materials when subject to each other create a variety of different results.
Conduct the experiment
Once all the groups are done conduct the experiment and see which group’s project does the best.
Rewarding your Students
At the end of the lesson do not forget to reward the winning team with the promised candy. Make sure that the candy given is of course safe for all members to consume (i.e. make sure they do not have any allergies to specific types of sweets).