Properties of air

http://www.sciencenetlinks.com/Lessons.cfm?DocID=156

A lesson plan for Grade 5 Science

Provider: American Association for the Advancement of Science

About this resource

Appropriate grades

5

Subjects

science (meteorology)

Provider

American Association for the Advancement of Science

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The purpose of this lesson is to demonstrate that air takes up space, and puts pressure, or pushes, on everything around it. The world we live in is covered with air, called the atmosphere. Although we can't see it, the air in our atmosphere is made up of a mixture of colorless gases. Earth's gravity pulls the air to the planet's surface. This is why the air in the atmosphere is densest near the ground (where the pull of gravity is greatest). The higher you go, the thinner the air becomes. Air pushes on all surfaces that it touches.

In this activity students will be conducting investigations that will help them develop and refine their ideas about air. To start the lesson students will be asked to write an explanation of what air is. At various points in the lesson they will be asked to revisit their explanations and refine them based on the phenomena they have experienced in the lesson. This lesson deals with some of the physical properties of air on the substance level in order to help students build toward future understanding of how air particles behave on a molecular level. However, such concepts should not be introduced at this time. Research indicates that students of all ages show a wide range of beliefs about the nature and behavior of particles and have difficulty in appreciating the intrinsic motion of particles in solids, liquids and gases.