Energy transfer and transformations are so much fun to teach! There are so many examples of energy transfers and transformations in our daily life that it’s easy to relay to students. We see it when we turn on a light switch, when we see an ice cube melt, and even when we eat a slice of pizza! We see it happening when we turn on the radio in the car, swing on a swing, and cook on the stove.
This can be a really fun lesson for students! It can be a bit confusing at first, especially when trying to determine the difference between energy transfer vs transformation, but they will get the hang of it!
So how is energy transfer different from energy transformation? Energy transfer occurs when the form of energy doesn’t change. It just moves from one place to another. For example, when you kick a soccer ball, the kinetic energy transfer from your foot to the soccer ball but remains kinetic energy. Energy transformation occurs when energy changes from form for to another. For instance, when grilling, chemical energy from the propane transforms to thermal energy.
Which energy transfer and transformations ides will you choose?
There are SO many more energy transfers and transformations examples that you can share with your students. In this post, I’m going to share how you can relay this information to your students while bringing that WOW factor to your classroom.
First, I will share with you how you can help your students to wonder before you teach the content. Next, I will tell you how you can introduce the content to your students without overwhelming them with too much information at a time. Finally, I will give you some ideas to widen their knowledge on the topic.
Let’s go and see what you can add to your energy transformation and energy transfer lesson plan.
Engaging Students in How Energy Transfers and Transforms
Before beginning a new topic or lesson, I like to get my students intrinsically motivated to learn the subject and wondering about what else they can learn! There are many ways to get your students engaged in energy transfer and transformations. Here are 3 fun ideas!
Bring an Instrument
One of my favorite things to do before beginning this topic is to bring an instrument in and talk about where the sound come from in the first place.
I personally have brought in a keyboard that plugs into the wall. The electrical energy gives it power, but what actually makes it play?
You can bring in an instrument and play it if you know how to or you can even have one of your talented students (or 2) play a song for the class.
Then, have some conversations!
- What form of energy do you hear when the instrument plays?
- Where does this sound energy come from?
- Does the instrument play itself?
Before teaching this lesson, students should already be familiar with the forms of energy. So, when you ask these questions, you should hear terms such as electrical energy, kinetic energy, chemical energy, etc.
Bringing an instrument is a fun way to incorporate music into your classroom and start this energy transfer and transformations lesson off with a bang!
PhET Simulation
Another fun way to get students engaged is to look at energy forms and changes using this PhET Simulation. This first one, in particular, looks at the transfer of energy and it relationship to heat, that is the intro simulation.
If you check the box for energy symbols, you can see how the energy moves when you make adjustments.
The link heaters checkbox allows you to move the heat-cool knobs for both heaters at the same time.
You can move a thermometer to the iron and brick to see the temperature change.
Students can choose their own experiments, or you can choose for them.
Make sure they look at the movement of energy and temperature. They can look at the differences between solids and liquids as well. There are a lot of options here.
This mainly focuses on heat energy and how it transfers. It makes for great conversations when you dive into the lesson. It’s a great energy transfer activity.
Let them have fun and explore!!
After this, they can work on the systems simulation to explore how energy transforms.
Students will have the opportunity to explore different energy resources such as mechanical, chemical, solar energy, and more!
They will see how it goes through a generator, or a solar panel, to transform to heat energy, light energy, and more!
Have a Snack!
I’ll have to admit, this is another awesome favorite of mine. Let your students have a snack.
Then, you can have a lot of discussions about how this will relate to the upcoming lesson.
- How do you feel when you are hungry? (tired, no energy, stomachache)
- Where does your energy come from to keep going? (food)
- Where does food get its energy?
- How does the energy from food turn into energy that help you run?
There are so many questions and fun conversations to be had.
Who doesn’t love a good snack?
Energy Transfer and Energy Transformations Interactive Lessons
Now your students are super excited about learning this topic, so now it’s time to dive in a little deeper.
Whenever you teach content, you want to make sure that you don’t throw too much information to your students at once. You want to allow them to build off of their prior knowledge and allow them to process a chunk at a time.
That’s just want interactive lessons do. They help to overcome overwhelm and reduce cognitive load. If students are given too much information to process, they will end up not learning at all.
They are great for individual learning, direct instruction, science stations, and more!
Energy Transformations and Energy Transfer Interactive Lesson
In this lesson/activity, students will learn all about this topic. Some concepts that are covered include energy transfer definition and examples, energy transformation and examples, energy definition, joules, The Law of Conservation of Energy, forms of energy, how energy can be transferred, and more!
Embedded within the content are interactive activities that students can complete to process what they are learning. There are drag-and-drop activities, type in the text box questions, and more!
These are a lot of fun for students and include research-based strategies to help your students retain material.
You can also find this on TPT.
Heat Transfer Interactive Lesson
If you are interested into diving into heat energy transfer, there is an interactive lesson for that.
This lesson/activity covers radiation, conduction and convection, heat vs. temperature, heat transfer in the atmosphere, and more.
There are a lot of fun embedded activities in this one!
You can also find this on TPT.
Energy Transfer and Transformations Activities to Widen Knowledge
At this point, your students have learned a lot about energy transformation and energy transfer, so now is their moment to take a super deep dive into the content, apply it, and show off what they know. This is their time to widen their knowledge.
Here are three awesome ideas to try!
Solar Ovens
This is a fun STEM activity that you can let your students create to model how solar energy can be transformed into heat energy.
There are so many videos that show you how to makes these. Here’s a cute, but cheesy one, that even your 8th grade middle school students will secretly like. If you just Google solar ovens, there are tons of options.
This will require some prep work in order to collect materials, build, and test. The results are awesome though.
I love to cook s’mores in these.
After you eat the s’mores, you can talk about further energy transformations that occur. Remember, energy is neither created nor destroyed, so where does it keep going?
Stations
You can also set up stations for your students to explore and identify the energy transfers and energy transformation. How is energy transformed and transferred?
Here are some examples that you can set up:
- electric circuits or snap circuits
- a drum
- melting ice
- flashlight
- eating a snack
- turning on a lamp
- tuning forks
- throwing a ball
- a microscope
There are so many options. You can have your students to determine if it is a transfer of energy or a transformation. Then they can explain.
This is a great activity for students to work together in partners or in groups.
Rube Goldberg Machine
Rube Goldberg machines are great for students to see how energy is transferred and transformed.
Students can try to create their own to turn on a light (mechanical to light energy) or pop a balloon (mechanical to sound energy). This is a great project to tie into your simple machines lesson as well.
Students can use materials such a cardboard, dominoes, marbles, toilet paper rolls, paper, boxes, and more to create their machine.
They should write down each example of energy transfer and transformation after the project is completed.
I wrote all about it in this post!
Help your students master science content!
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