Throughout this unit I present a series of lessons that meet the New Haven Public Schools’ curricular framework, and specifically performance standards on science, language arts, social studies, social development, and mathematics. These lessons incorporate a wide range of the strategies and techniques implemented in a constructivist classroom and sheltered instruction, as the students make sense and integrate their previous knowledge into the new content. Students create meaning from their interaction with other class members, adults in the home, the classroom, the school setting, and the community that surrounds the student. Thus, I view learning not as a passive knowledge acquisition process, but as an active process where the teacher provides students with opportunities to explore the topic at hand, and values each of the students’ experiential reality.
The classroom will become our laboratory where the concepts covered in this unit will be introduced and are concretely linked to the student’s experiences. The concepts of energy, and their uses is presented within the context of day-to-day life experiences and the effect of their usage, production and acquisition will be later explored. In another sense this unit will attempt to ignite the students’ wondering curiosity as the central force that directs and guides their study of many of the objects and things that use and produce energy around us.
For such a purpose, this unit studies everyday objects from the perspective of the energy concepts involved in their creation or the use of energy they make when we use them. By this, I mean that the day-to-day objects are studied as units of analysis and mainly interested in explaining and making students understand how energy is used/produced/wasted. Initially, a “historical” perspective is offered in order to contextualize the reasons and importance of energy in our lives. Thus, questions such as, “What is energy? What is the importance of energy? Why do we need energy? Is it possible to live without using energy? Which are the most important types of energy we depend upon? Which are the principles related to energy that are involved in the function, use, design of the given “object?,” become the beginning steps in our journey in our study.
Once the previous questions have been explored, I continue looking at some more complex questions reflective of the overall goals and objectives of the unit. Why does energy play such an important role in local, national and international policy? What are the basic principles of the relationship between energy and environment that any citizen should be aware? What are the direct and indirect environmental impacts of energy acquisition, transport, production and use?
The topic at hand would allow for many activities related to the changes that take place in the conversion of energy into motion that are above and beyond the capacity for such young students to begin to understand. However, students would be able to see the relation there is between fuel, energy, and work, even if they do not grasp all the factors and elements involved in the conversion. As part of the first and second grade curriculum, students begin to explore both non-standard and standard units of measurement. Thus students begin to use units of measurement such as the inch, foot, yard, and centimeters. They also begin to explore instruments to measure weight, temperature, and distance. Within this context, the common units of energy of calorie and BTU (British Thermal Unit) will be introduced. However, formulas, and the internal processes play in the conversion of fuel as energy into work or heat, will not be part of the lesson objectives.
Through different activities we will study and explore different forms of energy, their environmental factors, the production and use of energy in different cultures, and compare and study how energy use, production, transport and environmental impact is alike and different around the world.