If you’re looking for fun and engaging ways to teach forms of energy, your search is over. With these heat, light, and sound lesson plans, investigations, and anchor charts, students will:

• identify characteristics of each form of energy: heat, light, and sound

• investigate how heat, light, and sound are used in daily life

Characteristics of Heat, Light, and Sound Activities

Begin the new unit by helping students understand new science vocabulary. Use interactive notebook pages to have students write about each form of energy.

Heat

Work on developing reading comprehension with a nonfiction passage. While learning about heat energy, students will find text evidence to answer each question.

Heat Energy Experiment

Materials:

• 3-4 glass jars

• hot water

• thermometer

• foil

• bubble wrap

• sock

• paper

Procedure:

1. Show students the materials that will be wrapped around each jar.

2. Discuss which material will best hold in the thermal energy.

3. Fill the glass jars with equal amounts of hot water.

4. Measure the temperature of each glass of water.

5. Wrap each jar with a different material and wait 10-15 minutes.

6. Measure the temperature of each glass of water to determine which material was the best insulator.

7. Discuss your observations.

Light

Introduce light energy with this simple activity. Start by asking students to share what they can see with the lights on. Make a list of their responses. Next, turn off the lights. Ask students to share what they can see around the room. Add their responses to the list. Have a discussion about the differences in responses and what caused the contrast.

Continue learning about light energy and the ways that light travels. Students can begin to compare the characteristics of heat and light. Ask if they can think of anything that produces heat and light energy.

Sound

There are many words that are associated with sound, like noise and music. Teaching about sound waves can be difficult because sound is not something that we can see. Use this video to help students visualize and observe types of sound waves.

Continue to help students understand the characteristics of sound energy with some independent practice activities. Students can identify which objects produce sound energy.

Sound Energy Experiment

What better way to learn about sound than to create a musical instrument.

Materials:

• aluminum cans

• plastic containers

• rubber bands

• wax paper

• straws

• balloons

• beans

Procedure:

1. Students will use the materials to create their own instrument.

2. They will explain how to use their instrument to make sound energy.

3. Give students the opportunity to play their instrument along with their favorite song.

Identifying Forms of Energy Activities

Looking for independent activities to help students identify different forms of energy? In the Forms of Energy unit, there are a variety of practice pages where students can sort the forms of energy and find their own examples of heat, light, and sound.

Wrap-Up

This information packed unit has everything you need to help your students identify each form of energy. With each hands-on experiment, students will be able to apply their learning throughout the year.

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