​UNIT PLAN FOR SCIENCE

TEACHER Ashley Hache, Megan Smith, Karen Linton, Katarena Blackett

Subject/Class/C Science Education

ourse
Unit Title Physical Science: Invisible Forces (Static Electricity)
Grade Level Grade 3 Duration 6 classes

Summary of Unit

The students will be learning about how static electricity works, both through instruction
and activities, to make sure they fully understand how and where static electricity is found
in their everyday lives. By using everyday materials to produce static electricity, students
will be able to see and better understand why and how static electricity attracts and repels
certain objects. Furthermore, the students will explore what kinds of materials affect the
electrostatic forces. Lastly, given that static electricity is in their daily lives, we will
explore and explain how it can be used, as well how it can be used safely.

Objectives/Outcomes

GCO: Not Applicable

Assessment

Lesson 1:
- KWL Chart (see what the students know about static electricity, and what they
want to know)
Lesson 2:
- Color Cards (check point, hold up cards to get an idea of how students are feeling
thus far in the unit)
Lesson 3:
- Quickwrite (students will write in their science journals sharing an interesting
fact that they’ve learned about static electricity up to this point)
Lesson 4:
 - Written Response (following the experiment, students will write a short
paragraph on whether or not their predictions came true)
Lesson 5:
- Thumb Response (Students will give a thumbs up, thumbs sideways, or thumbs
down to indicate the areas of static electricity that they do or do not understand).
Lesson 6:
- KWL Chart (finish the KWL from lesson 1, filling in the “what they’ve learned”
section)
- Collage (combining pictures and keywords to show what they’ve learned
throughout the unit)

Develop the Instruction

This unit plan will focus on static electricity. There will be six lessons in total for the
entire unit.
Lesson 1:
- The students will learn the basics of static electricity and how it works. The focus
will be mostly on the electrons, protons, and neutrons. The students will learn
how static electricity happens when two neutrons come together. The basis of the
activities will be focused on this.
- The activities include an analogy so that students can understand the effects of
static electricity in their own way and a paper plate activity where the students
will see the effects of two electrons coming together.
- The assessment for this lesson will be a formative assessment known as a KWL
chart. This is to access prior knowledge.
Lesson 2:
- The students will still be learning the basics of static electricity in this lesson as
the same SCO will be covered in this lesson and the lesson prior.
- The activities include a touching game where the students will either come
together, stay apart, or stand still when the teacher says either electron, proton,
and neutron, and an electroscope activity where the students will build a device
that will show them the effects of two electrons touching to show static electricity
works.
- The assessment for this lesson will be a formative assessment known as a color
card activity. The different colors will associate with their understanding. This
will assess to see if they understand the materials that they have learned.
Lesson 3:
- The students will be learning about materials that can give off static. If students
know the materials that give off a charge than they will be able to show examples
in the future when they explain it to someone. This is also preparing them for an
investigation that they will be doing in a later lesson.
 - The activities include a quickwrite where students will be writing be what they
find most interesting about static electricity that will be put in their journals, and
used as a great formative assessment, and a matching game where the students
will be putting materials into categories of either static or non-static.
- The assessment for this lesson will be two formative assessments known as the
quickwrite and then a quick checking for understanding before they leave on
whether or not they understand materials that gave off a charge or did not give
one off.
Lesson 4:
- The students will be doing an investigation on items that are found in the
classroom and are brought from home that show static electricity. This is
important because students will be using their knowledge in a way that they will
understand. The investigation will show them how to predict and how to find
results.
- The activities include making a predictions on the items that will give off a
charge and the actual investigation. The items will be everyday household items
that they will all be able to use.
- The assessment for this lesson will be a formative assessment where the students
will write a response to their predictions and to write whether or not their
predictions came true. This is a good process for the students to learn.
Lesson 5:
- The students will be answering and asking questions about static electricity to
themselves, the other students, and the teacher. This a great way for the teacher to
check for understanding, and for the students to teach others on the subject.
- The activities include a grand discussion where it will take place with the whole
class and the students will be able to ask any questions that they might have on
the subject, and an interview that the students will do in partners that will assess if
they can go further into their knowledge on static electricity.
- The assessment for this lesson will be a formative assessment where the students
will be doing a thumbs up activity to see if they understand all the material that
they have learned about static electricity. This will help the teacher to see if they
need to go over anything one more time in the last class on static electricity
Lesson 6:
- The students will be learning about the everyday materials in their daily lives that
produce static electricity that will put everything together. This will go really well
with what they learned in their investigations.
- The activities include finding commonality between three objects, a movie from
Bill Nye which will be a relaxing time for the students. This will help them bring
all their knowledge together and use it during the video, and finally, they will do
a collage, which will turn into a summative assessment.
- The assessments for this lesson are two formative assessments and a summative
assessment. The formative assessments is the students answering the
 commonality between the three objects, which is static electricity, and them
finishing the KWL chart that they started out with. The summative assessment is
the students making a collage with all the information that they have learned from
the entire unit. This will end the static electricity section of the class.

Lesson One: Getting ec-​static

SCO: describe and demonstrate ways to use everyday materials to produce static electric
charges, and describe how charged materials interact (attract, repel) (101-8, 203-3)
Activities:
Hook: For the hook we are going to be using an analogy using a 2 litre bottle of Pepsi and
mentos. This activity will be done outside to demonstrate to the students that two
electrons that come together will repel from each other which is the same as combining
mentos and the pepsi together, making an explosion.

Paper Plates: For this activity, the students will be using paper plates.This paper plate
activity will demonstrate the effect of static electricity. By rubbing both plates on top of
their heads then placing them together, this creates a reaction, which repels the two plates
from each other.

Exit Ticket: The students will answer on a piece of paper why the mentos and Pepsi
analogy showed static electricity. This will be used to check for understanding.
Assessment:
Formative: For this activity we will be doing a KWL Chart to assess the prior knowledge
of the students and what they want to learn from this subject. This type of assessment is a
great way to indicate what the students already know, what they want to know, and what
they have learned.

Lesson Two: I Can Make Static!

SCO: describe and demonstrate ways to use everyday materials to produce static electric
charges, and describe how charged materials interact (attract, repel) (101-8, 203-3)
Activities:
Hook: The students will be doing a touching activity. The students will be in pairs for this
activity. The activity goes as follows, to best help the students understand how protons,
neutrons, and electrons works: When the teacher says protons, the students will link arms,
when the teacher says electrons, the students will repel and separate, and when the teacher
says neutron the students will stay in place.

Electroscope: In groups of two, each group will have the following materials: A mason
jar, a sheet of aluminum foil, a nail, tape, a piece of cardboard that can cover the mason
jar, and a small balloon. They will follow these steps to see static electricity work in
action: 1. Blow up the balloon. 2. Put the nail through the center of the cardboard. 3. Take
two strips of aluminum foil, 4 inches long each, fold it in half, and tape it to the nail on the
cardboard so that over an inch hangs off the tip. 4. Place the cardboard and nail with foil
over the jar. 5. Brush the balloon on on your hair to make static and place the balloon on
the head of the nail on top of the jar. 6. Note findings as the tips of the aluminum foil
separate due to static electricity. This activity will show the students the effects of two
electrons coming together.

Exit Ticket: Tell the students to bring home their electroscopes and to come back the next
day with one item that they found that showed the static through their electroscopes.
Assessment:
Formative: Color Cards. Students will each have three slips of paper coloured red, yellow,
and green. The teacher will go through terms and questions concerning static electricity
and the students will hold up the card that best describes their understanding of the items
presented. Red= Confused. Yellow= A little confused. Green= I understand.

Lesson Three: Static Friend vs. Static Foe

SCO: identify materials to be used to investigate conditions which affect the force of static
electricity, and suggest ways to use them in their investigations (202-7)
Activities:
Hook: First ask the students what items they found at their houses that show static
electricity. Students will do a quickwrite to demonstrate what they know about static
electricity up to this point. There will be a writing prompt written on the board that says
“The thing I find most interesting about static electricity is…” This will tell us what the
students know about static electricity, making it a good APK for the upcoming lesson.
Students will have a science journal where they will write their responses. The journals
will be in their desks for easy access. The students will complete the quickwrite and then
place their journals into a tray at the front of the class so that they can be read and used as
a form of formative assessment.

Matching Game: Students will be given index cards that will have pictures of items on
them that may or may not give off a static charge. In groups of four, students will be asked
to categorize the index cards into either the “static electric” group or the “non-static
electric”. I will walk around and check in on each group to make sure that they know what
the objects are for, offering clues when needed.
Exit ticket: As students leave the room, they will have to name me one item that gave off
or one item that did not give off static electric charge. This will allow me to quickly check
in on what the students have learned about static electricity.
Assessment:
Formative: Quickwrite. Students will write about something they find interesting about
the topic of static electricity.

Lesson Four: All Things Static Cling!

SCO: make and record relevant observations during investigations to identify conditions
that affect electrostatic forces, draw simple conclusions about these conditions (100-33,
201-5, 202-7)
Activities:
Hook: For the hook, we will be asking the students to predict the outcome of the balloon
investigation and write their thoughts on a piece of paper. The students will hand in the
piece of paper prior to the investigation. We will explain the instructions to the students
before they make their predictictions.This activity will be described in the activity section
later on.

Investigation: For the activity, we will be conducting an experiment with a balloon. The
purpose of this experiment is to see what the balloon will repel from and what it will not
repel from. The students will rub the balloon on objects such as cotton, fur, wool, dryer
sheets, a comb, apples and a shoe to see which of these objects stick to the balloon and
which of them do not.

Exit Ticket: This will be the formative assessment portion that is explained next.
Assessment:
Formative: For the formative assessment, we will get the students to create a response for
their predictions after they complete the experiment. We will have the students write out
their response on a piece of paper following the experiment that they have just completed.

Lesson Five: Static Electricity Q&A

SCO: identify new questions from what has been learned about static electricity (202-9)
Activities:
Hook: Grand Discussion - The students will write down any questions they still have
about static electricity, which the teacher will randomly draw and answer. If the students
can answer the question first, they can give their answer and the teacher will clarify if
needed.
Interview: The students will be split into pairs and ask each other the following questions
in an interview format: Have you ever been able to stick a balloon to the wall without any
tape or adhesive? How did you do it? Did it stay very long? How can you get two
balloons that are suspended on threads to move away from each other without actually
moving them apart?

Exit Ticket: This will go along with the formative assessment which is explained next. If
the students did not understand something they will write it down on a piece of paper and
hand it to the teacher. If the students do understand than they will write their favorite part
of the class so far.
Assessment:
Formative: Thumbs Up Questions. The students will be asked various questions to make
sure they understand the material they have learned to date. If they give a thumbs up they
understand, a thumb in the middle means they somewhat understand, and a thumbs down
means they do not understand.

Lesson Six: I’m a Static Fanatic!

SCO: describe examples of the effects of static electricity in their daily lives, and identify
ways in which static electricity can be used safely or should be avoided (102-15)
Activities:
Hook: “What do these three things have in common?” Will be written on the board.
Underneath that will be three objects - a comb, a dryer sheet, and a balloon. Students will
be called on to guess what these three items have in common (static electricity!) based on
what they have been learning during this unit. (To select students, I could use popsicle
sticks with names on them if desired).

Activity: For the main activity in class today, we will be watching a video that
summarizes what we have learned about static electricity over the course of this unit. The
video we will be showing is “Bill Nye the Science Guy: Static Electricity”. The video is
approximately 38:00 minutes long, so we will have a brain break half way through to get
the kids up and moving. Before the video begins, the teacher will answer the questions
that were asked from the exit ticket from the previous day.

Explain Project: After the video is finished, I will explain to students their project. As a
form of summative assessment, students will be asked to create a collage about static
electricity. They can combine pictures (of dryer sheets, balloons, wool socks, etc) with
written words (electron, proton, charge, etc) about what they’ve learned about static
electricity. The project will be due the following week.
Exit Ticket: At the end of the lesson, students will be asked to fill in the “L” part of their
KWL chart that they did at the beginning of the unit. Students will be asked to give
answers about what they have learned and can come write their answers on the board
themselves if they wish.
Assessment:
Formative: KWL Chart (Finish)
Summative: Collage (all the things they have learned, draw with key words)

Materials, Technologies, Safety or Special Considerations

Materials:
- Lesson 1: Two 2 litre bottles of Pepsi, pack of Mentos, two paper plates per each
student, and a pencil and piece of paper
- Lesson 2: Each student will need a mason jar, a sheet of aluminum foil, a nail,
tape, a piece of cardboard, and a small balloon. They will also need the three color
cards each.
- Lesson 3: Journal, pencil, and index cards with objects for the matching game.
One set for every four students.
- Lesson 4: Paper, pencils, sheets for the investigation, and items for the
investigation (balloon, cotton, fur, wool, dryer sheets, a comb, apples and a shoe.)
- Lesson 5: Paper and pencils.
- Lesson 6: Comb, dryer sheet, balloon, video of Bill Nye, same sheet for their
KWL chart from the beginning, and the instructions for their collage assessment.

Technologies:
- Lesson 1: NA.
- Lesson 2: NA.
- Lesson 3: NA.
- Lesson 4: NA.
- Lesson 5: NA.
- Lesson 6: A tv and dvd player, or projector, screen and computer to play the Bill
Nye video.

Safety:
- Lesson 1: When going outside to do the mentos and Pepsi experiment, pay
attention that the students are with you at all times.
- Lesson 2: Help students when it comes to the nail part of the electroscopes. Also
have material that will help them safely bring their electroscopes home. Notify
parents that they will be bringing these home ahead of time.
- Lesson 3: NA.
- Lesson 4: Check for allergies before students touch materials for the investigation.
 - Lesson 5: NA.
- Lesson 6: NA.

Special Considerations:
- Lesson 1: Think of the weather outside before deciding to do the Pepsi and
mentos activity.
- Lesson 2: NA.
- Lesson 3: NA.
- Lesson 4: NA.
- Lesson 5: NA.
- Lesson 6: NA.

Reflection

Were my students successful in meeting the outcomes and objectives? How do I know?
Did my instructional decisions meet the needs of all students? What could I do to
improve the lesson/s?