HyperScience Lesson Plans Guidelines

The purpose behind this project is to provide you with HyperScience resources for learning about and teaching areas of science with which you are unfamiliar or with which you feel discomfort. In this project you will develop 3 separate inquiry-oriented lesson plans (e.g., entirely different subject matter) from which you can teach the topics. Lessons plans should follow the guidance of and will be assessed with an inquiry lesson scoring rubric.

Identify three (3) areas of science that you are required to teach or with which you feel discomfort. Visit the respective HyperScience web sites (HyperPhysics, HyperChemistry, HyperGeophysics, or HyperBiology) and identify these areas by name. Read the content of the HyperScience web page following the flow of the concept map leading to your topic area. Then, complete the following steps. See the example of expected performance below.

A. Identify the content area as provided in one of the hyperscience concept maps.

B. Identify concept(s) and rationale.

C. Identify correlation with Illinois Learning Standards in Science.

D. Specify an appropriate number of learning targets.

E. List and explain as appropriate instructional activities.

F. Provide sample assessment questions to see if you have achieved learning target with students.

Example. Say, for instance, that I want to teach a series of lessons on color, but have been uncomfortable with the content. Here is my mini unit plan based on HyperPhysics:

A. Content Area: Colors

B. Concepts and Rationale: Introduce the additive properties of light projection and the subtractive properties of pigments so students can understand how color-producing devices work.

C. Illinois Learning Standards:

State Goal 12:  Understand the fundamental concepts, principles and interconnections of the life, physical and earth/space sciences.

12C. Know and apply concepts that describe properties of matter and energy and the interactions between them.

12.C.2a. Describe and compare types of energy including light, heat, sound, electrical and mechanical.

D. Learning Targets:

• Students will, using color projectors, determine the additive properties of light.
• Students will, using color projectors, define the complementary colors for each of the primary colors.
• Students will, using color tempura paints, determine the subtractive properties of pigments.

E. Instructional Activities:

• Elicit questions from the students about colors. Have the students examine a TV or CRT with a magnifying glass to see the red (R), green (G), and blue (B) elements.
• How do you get yellow from red, green, and blue on a TV?
• How can you print all the colors from a color printer that only has cyan, magenta, and yellow ink?
  
• Have whole group first experiment with red, green, and blue light projectors (slide projectors with filters).
• What happens when each pair of light overlaps? (red+green, red+blue, green+blue)
• What happens when all three colors overlap? (red+green+blue)
  
• Have small groups individually experiment with tempura paints (red, green, blue = RGB).
• What happens when each of the paint pairs are mixed? (red+green, red+blue, green+blue)
• What happens when all the colors are mixed? (red+green+blue)
  
• Report small group findings to the class.
  
• Draw conclusions working with whole group.
• Light is not like paint - it's light is "additive"
• Mix 3 lights (RGB) = white; mix 3 pigments (RGB) = black
• Why? Develop a working hypothesis - its colors are "subtractive"
• Test the hypothesis using the aforementioned tools.
• Draw conclusions from the experiments.
• Reflected light is the color seen. That is, a red shirt is red because it reflects red light and absorbs the others; a blue shirt is blue because it reflects mostly blue light and absorbs the others.
• Emitted light (slide projectors) is all RGB, and lights colors are "additive"
• White objects reflect all colors.
• Black objects reflect no colors.

F. Assessment questions:

• A TV can produce yellow light by illuminating both the green and red elements at the same time.
• A printer can make all the colors by mixing the various ink colors.
• Question: Will the printer still work if you use a paper color other than white?