People Particles/Lesson Document

How to use this resource

This is a practical session to be used with a whole class –perhaps with the added supervision of a TA if the class is excitable or particularly young. There is scope within this activity for a number of different methods of learning:

Whole class dialogue - Discussion of each part of the activity Open-ended questions – Why do materials change state? What happens to the particles? Project work – as part of a wider science topic on materials Enquiry-based learning – children are discovering the answer to questions that they are encouraged to pose themselves. Arguing and reasoning – persuading each other about their ideas Exploring ideas – developing practical, physical understanding of key scientific principles

Notes and tips You need a large area for this particularly if the group are young or excitable. Lay down ground rules about behaviour as the activity involves some running around.

Teacher's Notes:

Duration – 15 to 20 minutes

Resources – large space – 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’

Differentiation – through differentiated questions and support with answers.

Links – to a wider topic on changing materials and as a pre cursor to an investigation in to how materials are affected by heat and cold.

Type of lesson – Practical, physical exploration of a concept.

Follow up/extension – conduct investigative work in to changes in materials through heating and cooling

Recommendations/class set up – a large space, e.g. the school hall with an extra adult.

Other methods of teaching same topic- dvd, books, simple explanation, using marbles in a container as particles.

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

Discuss the different states of materials – establish knowledge of the terms solid, liquid, 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 – simplistic but effective at this stage – ask if anyone knows the names of some of the particles. Children may suggest atoms, cells, etc. Accept all of those and explain that all of those 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 you 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 the children 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.