People Particles/Lesson Document

How to use this resource

This resource can be used prior to the investigation in to how materials are affected by heating and cooling or it could link to a wider topic on changing materials. Resources needed are a large space with cones set out in a 3 sided-square large enough for all the children to walk around each other but not so large they can run without coming out of the top. This area is the ‘container’. You will need a large area for this particularly if the group are young and/or excitable (e.g. the school hall would be suitable with an extra adult to supervise). Lay down ground rules about behaviour as the activity involves some running around and use differentiated questions and support with answers during the initial discussion which will help pupils to get the most from the activity.

Teacher's Notes

Duration – 15 to 20 minutes

Start

Set up a ‘container’ using cones in the hall in an open sided square shape.

Discuss the different states of materials, establishing knowledge of the terms 'solid', 'liquid' and 'gas'. In pairs, give children 2 minutes to come up with words to describe water in each of the states.

Main Activity

Explain that everything in the world is made of particles – which is simplistic but effective at this stage – and ask if anyone knows the names of some of the particles. Children may suggest atoms, cells, etc. Accept all of those and explain that they all have an amount of energy.

Ask the children to use the hall to move around as if they had lots of energy – expect running. Then as if they had only a bit of energy – expect slow walking/crawling, etc.

Ask the children to show what happens when they have no energy at all – expect stillness with a very little movement.

Show the children the ‘container’ and show them the open top, the sides and the bottom. Explain that particles are similar to how the children have just been in their movements and that they are all going to be particles.

Start with the liquid state – guide the children in to the container. The children within the container are in the liquid state, which means they have a bit of energy – ask them to move around each other inside the container but say that they don’t have enough energy to move far at all.

Then pretend to take energy away from the children – this means that they should move to the bottom of the container very close to each other and stay still – push and pull a couple of children gently to show that when the particles are all clumped together they feel solid as they can’t move.

Then pretend to heat up the bottom of the container giving the children lots of energy – they can now begin to run around quickly but they need mores space to do so. Some children have to break away out of the top of the container and they are able to run around the hall independently of each other. These are people particles in the gas state.

End

Ask the children to sit back down. In whatever manner is appropriate for the class, ask questions about what they have just done to check understanding.

Marbles in a container as particles can be used back in the classroom to reiterate the concepts covered.