Unit 2: Got that big, big, energy

Summary:

Unit 2 introduces students to waves, energy, power, heat, heat engines, and the first and second laws of thermodynamics. All materials have relevance to a central motivating question about a massive volcanic eruption (see below). Students engage with the materials through hands-on explorations, generation and analysis of their own data, system mapping, ocean buoy data, and more. Students will ultimately demonstrate their understanding of these topics when they create a lesson that focuses on one aspect of this unit.

This unit introduces a format that will be repeated in future units. Students complete (approximately) weekly reflections about their subject-specific learning, create science journals for all lab activities, and complete a short "Scientist Spotlight" to showcase a diversity of scientists who have all overcome some challenge in pursuit of their scientific passion. Quantitative skills are developed that include interpreting direct/inverse proportionality; calculating and interpreting mean and standard deviation; inserting a best fit line to data and interpreting the results as physically meaningful from governing equations; using simple equations to make predictions and draw conclusions about data; and performing unit conversions.

This material is suitable for any undergraduate level and no prior college-level coursework is assumed; if Unit 2.7 is completed (the lesson plan summative assignment), then students should be familiar with the NGSS's SEP (Science and Engineering Practices) and CCC (Cross-Cutting Concepts) from Unit 1.2 or through other coursework. Most of these materials work well as standalone experiences if the entire unit can't be completed.

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In January 2022, a volcanic eruption in the middle of the Pacific Ocean was so explosive that it was heard almost 6,000 miles away - that's twice the distance from California to New York!

Provenance: National Weather Service Alaska twitter image posted in January, 2022.
Reuse: This item is offered under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ You may reuse this item for non-commercial purposes as long as you provide attribution and offer any derivative works under a similar license.

Motivating question:

What was that sound?! How can we experience a volcanic eruption from across the globe?

Time for this Unit:

This unit is designed to take about one month of class time (one third of a typical semester course). If all units are completed without any of the extension activities, then plan for 13-14 hours of class time. Extension activities and labs add an additional 7-8 hours of class times. Materials that can be skipped without loss of continuity are noted throughout.

Overview:

Throughout Unit 2, all tasks are building toward a deep understanding of the Unit's motivating question about the Hunga Tonga Volcano. Students proceed through the activities, labs, and class discussions by making observations, asking questions, performing analyses, collecting data, and generating system maps before a final culminating summative assignment to create a NGSS lesson plan for an activity in this unit.

• Unit 2.1: Why are waves created and what is the point of them? (170-200 min) Waves are observable all over the place, so why do they exist? Students analyze properties such as wave speed, distance traveled, and time elapsed through their own explorations. They are introduced to new lab concepts (accuracy and precision) and new quantitative skills (interpreting graph data and proportionality). Students are also introduced to the Hunga Tonga volcanic eruption, which sent a shock wave that encircled the globe about three times. This eruption will serve as a motivating question throughout the unit.
• Unit 2.1 Extension: Wave Application to Hunga Tsunami Wave Data (60 min + 60 min extension lab/activity) Waves are observable all over the place, so why do they exist? Students conduct experiments to examine wave speed, then use data to analyze wave speed, distance traveled, and time elapsed for the tsunami wave created by the Hunga Tonga volcanic eruption that occurred on January 14, 2022. In these follow-up extension activities to Unit 2.1, students are asked to complete the same analysis that they completed in the Unit 2.1 Slinky Lab, but this time with data from a real-world event.
• Unit 2.2: Measuring and Analyzing Waves (70 min + 90-110 min extension lab/activity) This unit follows up and reinforces the topics introduced in the previous unit (Unit 2.1) about waves and wave properties. Multiple scaffolded extension activities and lab exercises build on similar concepts with increasing levels of difficulty and independence.
• Unit 2.3: What is energy and how can we transform it? (80 min) Students have already touched on the idea of energy in a previous unit, but in this unit we investigate it more deeply through activities that connect different energy types, how energy is transferred, and applications of the law of conservation of energy.
• Unit 2.4: Power (100 min + 90 min extension lab/activity) In this unit, students explore the relationship between energy and power when they design an experiment to measure and calculate their maximum power output by running up a staircase at a fast, medium, and slow rate. In a follow-up extension lab, students reinforce these concepts by building a small generator.
• Unit 2.5: Applying what we've learned: How can a volcanic eruption or earthquake shake the whole world? (85-95 min) We're over halfway through Unit 2 and the students are now equipped with a more solid understanding of energy types and transformations, waves, power, and the fact that waves move energy from one place to another. In this unit we return to this unit's motivating question: "How can a volcanic eruption or earthquake shake the whole world?" Students will synthesize their understanding of course topics as they learn about how to create system maps.
• Unit 2.6: Is heat always a dead end, or can it do something useful too? (150 min + 60 min extension lab/activity) Students focus on some thermodynamic aspects of energy: Heat, heat engines, and the second law of thermodynamics. We have already laid the groundwork for these concepts in Unit 2.3 (Energy Types and Transformations), when we noted that some types of energy (sound, wind, thermal energy) indicate that energy is dissipated. Now, it's time for students to look for real-world heat engines. In a jigsaw activity, students analyze data from a variety of real-world heat engines to assess how they are extracting useful energy as heat flows from hot to cold. In a hands-on lab, students build a heat engine boat.
• Unit 2.7 Unit synthesis and lesson plan (90 min - 4+ hours) This is the final module for the Unit and tasks students to apply their understanding of Waves, Energy, and Thermodynamics. In this summative assignment, students choose an activity that they have completed in Unit 2 and write this activity up as a NGSS lesson plan for an audience of their choosing. Students must integrate their physical science knowledge together with science and engineering practices and cross-cutting concepts as future teachers. Writing learning objectives is treated as a focus point in pre-activity class discussions.

Learning Outcomes:

By the end of this unit, students will:

• Mastery of Waves and Proportional Relationships: Students will proficiently model wave behavior, determine direct and inverse relationships, and utilize mathematical representations to articulate relationships among different physical concepts and quantities.
• Confident Data Analysis and Independence: Students will confidently generate data, create plots, and interpret results, eventually building confidence and independence in their data analysis skills.
• Comprehensive Energy Understanding: Students will explore various energy types and transformations, skillfully applying the law of conservation of energy to construct energy transformation diagrams.
• Advanced Concept Application and Engineering: Students will apply concepts of energy, power, and waves to real-world scenarios, analyze patterns in power and energy usage, engineer energy transformation methods, and embrace failure as a vital part of the scientific process.
• Integration of Concepts and Effective Communication: Graduates will adeptly synthesize NGSS principles with energy-related concepts, effectively communicate complex ideas at appropriate levels, and analyze and create clear, concise learning objectives using action verbs focused on essential concepts.