Classical Conversations, Cycle 2, Week 19, Week 20, Week 21, Science

[@Kerrilyn77]

That was AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@karendelgado203]

How do you explain these laws to the children. Not simply memorize but understand? What activities do you do? Thanks in advance for ideas

[@KristiGaddy]

Thermodynamics is that branch of science that explains the relationship between energy. I used the example of a flash light to explain the first law. The flash light does create light, it uses energy that is transferred from a battery. The battery doesn’t create energy, it just stores it. The energy isn’t created or destroyed, it is transferred. My girls and I did an experiment where we blew up a balloon using baking soda and vinegar. It caused an endothermic chemical reaction which absorbed heat and released energy in the form of air bubbles which caused the balloon to blow up. We talked about how energy was not being created, but rather it was being transferred and stored inside of the balloon. It was a great visual representation. Today in class, I used a very simple explanation of Anna and Elsa. Anna is known for her burning love for her sister. When Elsa’s heart was “frozen,” Anna’s love found a way to find her and penetrate her ice. That is probably a very poor explanation, but my 2nd-3rd graders were satisfied. 🤣 Next week, I will explain that it is impossible to reach absolute zero temperature because it is impossible to remove all presence of heat from a substance…..kind of like it is impossible to remove God’s love from our lives. The good news is that my CC kids are still in the grammar stage and don’t ask a lot of whys yet in class. When I am able to make connections in hands on science, I do. However, they won’t really start putting these big ideas to a actual use until they are a little older.

[@karendelgado203]

@@KristiGaddy The reaction of baking soda and vinegar is a chemical reaction. The bubbles are not air bubbles. They are CO2. If you tied off the balloon and played with I, you would notice it behaves oddly. Also…if you let it sit it will shrink much faster than an air-filled balloon because the CO2 molecules are smaller than air molecules. They are able to leak out more easily. It is a great demonstration for conservation of matter too. If you put the set up on a scale and watch it you will observe that the mass of the set-up doesn’t change. It’s not a perfect closed system…but close. The chemical reaction occurs and the atoms “switch places”…but all the atoms are still present…just bonded to different elements. Also. That reaction is endothermic not exothermic. The container will feel cool. “endothermic reaction It took energy to break the baking soda and vinegar apart and energy was released when the carbon dioxide, sodium acetate, and water were formed. Since more energy was needed to break the baking soda and vinegar apart, the temperature went down. This reaction is called an endothermic reaction.” From www.acs.org/content/dam/acsorg/education/resources/k-8/science-activities/chemicalphysicalchange/chemicalreactions/heat-up-to-some-cool-reactions.pdf The stored energy transferring to heat and light energy is a good one! Simple and visual. I also found online an idea to boil water and add ice. The water stops boiling because the heat energy transfers to the coldest area. I’ll try it.

[@KristiGaddy]

Read again. I say endothermic, not exothermic. The balloon experiment is the experiment my kids did for their science fair project. It isn’t a perfect example of Thermodynamics, but for the short time they were interested in the CO2 filled balloon it worked for my “kid friendly” explanation of stored energy. 🤪 These are really big concepts for kids. I really try to pull in our Memory Work to our everyday conversations when I can so my kids can see how the whole world is connected. It is my goal to foster a love of learning in all subjects through homeschool.

[@karendelgado203]

@@KristiGaddy Sorry for the misread. I guess I admit I don’t quite get the memory work. Memorizing something that isn’t understood at this age level. I try to find an activity or experiment to demonstrate the concept to help. The balloon example I was sharing would not be a science fair project unless you added variables. It takes only a minute to state that CO2 was produced. It is a good example of conservation of mass (and energy). God’s creation is amazing. Thank you for your response.

[@KristiGaddy]

@@karendelgado203 We went into much more depth for the exercise of our Science Fair project. We measured the mass of each ballon to determine which ratio of sodium bicarbonate and acetic acid gave us the biggest bang for our buck. It was great to walk my girls through the scientific method. Have you read Leigh Bortin’s book Echo’s in Celebration? It’s free on the CC bookstore. It really helped me several years ago when I was struggling with this same question. I often think on this book when I see my kids breaking through to the next stage of learning. My 8yo is perfectly happy just singing the silly songs and pretending to be whatever character the songs calls for. My 10yo is starting to ask more questions because she has entered the dialectic stage. This book explains these stages so well and really helped equip me to better teach my little people.