Packaging pioneers
View Sequence overviewStudents will:
- use a provided scaffold to plan and investigate how to keep food colder for longer.
- follow procedures to make and record observations using timing devices.
- understand how data from investigations is used to develop scientific explanations about the best materials.
- explore the insulative properties of different materials for keeping things cool.
Students will represent their understanding as they:
- complete the Keeping cool investigation planner Resource sheet.
- record their observations.
- interpret data both collected and provided.
In this lesson, assessment is formative.
Feedback might focus on:
- the claims made by students and if they are reliably supported by the data they collected.
In this lesson, assessment might also be summative.
Students working at the achievement standard (science inquiry) should have:
- be able to use provided scaffolds to plan and conduct investigations to answer questions or test predictions.
Refer to the Australian Curriculum content links on the Our design decisions tab for further information.
Whole class
Class science journal (digital or hard-copy)
Demonstration copy of the Melting scenario cartoon Resource sheet
Demonstration copy of the How fast will it melt? investigation planner Resource sheet
2 x small ice cubes (as close in size as possible). The larger the ice cubes, the longer they will take to melt, especially in cooler weather. We recommend using small ice-cubes.
2 x plates
Timing device
Demonstration copy of the Variables grid Resource sheet
Optional: Demonstration copy of the Keeping cool investigation planner Resource sheet. This resource sheet includes a section where students can create their own data table to record results. You might modify the resource sheet to include a data table before printing it for student use. Alternatively you can model how to create an appropriate data table during Step 3 of the lesson.
Each group
3 x small ice cubes (as close in size as possible)
3 x small resealable bags
A range of materials students can select to act as potential thermal insulators, for example, foil, cloth, plastic, bubble wrap, paper towel
Timing device
Each student
Individual science journal (digital or hard-copy)
Keeping cool investigation planner Resource sheet
Lesson
Re-orient
Recall the previous lesson, focusing on how students used comparative testing as material scientists to compare different materials’ properties—specifically, they tested tensile strength.
Revise the following terms, potentially using the Frayer Model if time permits.
Material: The substance that an object is made from, such as plastic, wood, or glass.
Physical properties: The features of a material that can be observed or measured.
Tensile strength: A measure of the force needed to pull or stretch a material to the point where it breaks.
Variable: Something that can be changed, measured or kept the same in an investigation.
The Inquire phase allows students to cycle progressively and with increasing complexity through the key science ideas related to the core concepts. Each Inquire cycle is divided into three teaching and learning routines that allow students to systematically build their knowledge and skills in science and incorporate this into their current understanding of the world.
When designing a teaching sequence, it is important to consider the knowledge and skills that students will need in the final Act phase. Consider what the students already know and identify the steps that need to be taken to reach the level required. How could you facilitate students’ understanding at each step? What investigations could be designed to build the skills at each step?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkIdentifying and constructing questions is the creative driver of the inquiry process. It allows students to explore what they know and how they know it. During the Inquire phase of the LIA Framework, the Question routine allows for past activities to be reviewed and to set the scene for the investigation that students will undertake. The use of effective questioning techniques can influence students’ view and interpretation of upcoming content, open them to exploration and link to their current interests and science capital.
When designing a teaching sequence, it is important to spend some time considering the mindset of students at the start of each Inquire phase. What do you want students to be thinking about, what do they already know and what is the best way for them to approach the task? What might tap into their curiosity?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkStill frozen?
Using a demonstration copy of the Melting scenario cartoon Resource sheet, read about what happened to Naseera and Codi’s frozen treats. Use the think-pair-share strategy to explore and share ideas as to why Naseera’s treat may have remained more frozen, while Codi’s completely melted.
NOTE: In Year 3 students will have learned about changes of state between solids and liquids, as well as about how heat is transferred from a warmer object to a cooler one until they are approximately the same temperature.
Pose the question: Did the location of Naseera and Codi's school bags cause their frozen treats to melt?
Think, pair, share
Think, pair, share is a strategy to encourage discussion and contribution from all students.
Within a classroom there are often students who raise their hands and offer ideas readily, as well as those who are less confident to share their ideas. The think, pair, share strategy can encourage more students to get involved because it allows thinking time and removes fear of being wrong, as students can offer ideas they have agreed upon with their partner.
In the strategy:
- Students are prompted with a question, topic, claim or idea.
- They are given time to think, typically between 10 and 20 seconds. The time can be extended for complex questions or topics.
- Students pair up with someone near them to discuss their answers and ideas.
- Invite students to share with the class, starting with (Student's name) and I discussed/thought/talked about...
You can also add the step ‘square’ where pairs team up with another pair to discuss further before sharing. This can be helpful to expose students to a wider range of ideas and vocabulary.
Within a classroom there are often students who raise their hands and offer ideas readily, as well as those who are less confident to share their ideas. The think, pair, share strategy can encourage more students to get involved because it allows thinking time and removes fear of being wrong, as students can offer ideas they have agreed upon with their partner.
In the strategy:
- Students are prompted with a question, topic, claim or idea.
- They are given time to think, typically between 10 and 20 seconds. The time can be extended for complex questions or topics.
- Students pair up with someone near them to discuss their answers and ideas.
- Invite students to share with the class, starting with (Student's name) and I discussed/thought/talked about...
You can also add the step ‘square’ where pairs team up with another pair to discuss further before sharing. This can be helpful to expose students to a wider range of ideas and vocabulary.
The Inquire phase allows students to cycle progressively and with increasing complexity through the key science ideas related to the core concepts. Each Inquire cycle is divided into three teaching and learning routines that allow students to systematically build their knowledge and skills in science and incorporate this into their current understanding of the world.
When designing a teaching sequence, it is important to consider the knowledge and skills that students will need in the final Act phase. Consider what the students already know and identify the steps that need to be taken to reach the level required. How could you facilitate students’ understanding at each step? What investigations could be designed to build the skills at each step?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkThe Investigate routine provides students with an opportunity to explore the key ideas of science, to plan and conduct an investigation, and to gather and record data. The investigations are designed to systematically develop content knowledge and skills through increasingly complex processes of structured inquiry, guided inquiry and open inquiry approaches. Students are encouraged to process data to identify trends and patterns and link them to the real-world context of the teaching sequence.
When designing a teaching sequence, consider the diagnostic assessment (Launch phase) that identified the alternative conceptions that students held. Are there activities that challenge these ideas and provide openings for discussion? What content knowledge and skills do students need to be able to complete the final (Act phase) task? How could you systematically build these through the investigation routines? Are there opportunities to build students’ understanding and skills in the science inquiry processes through the successive investigations?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkSun or shade?
Consider the different ways and locations that students store their lunch/school bags throughout the school day. A tour around the school might be one way to see if bags/lunchboxes are stored in sunlight outside the classroom, in internal shaded corridors, in tubs inside the classroom etc.
Discuss how the location of the school bag/lunch box over the course of the day may have caused Naseera and Codi's treats to melt, and why. Ask students if they think that something frozen will melt faster when placed in a warm, sunny location as compared to a cooler, shaded location and why they think that.
As a demonstration, investigate to answer the question: What happens to the time it takes an ice cube to melt when we change its location (a warm, sunny location compared to a cooler, shaded location)? Place two ice cubes of roughly the same size on a plate, putting one in a warm, sunny location, and one in a cooler shaded location, and time how long it takes them to completely melt.
Model how to plan an investigation and record data from it using a demonstration copy of the How fast will it melt? Resource sheet.
Design a simple data table to record the information before undertaking the investigation.
The Inquire phase allows students to cycle progressively and with increasing complexity through the key science ideas related to the core concepts. Each Inquire cycle is divided into three teaching and learning routines that allow students to systematically build their knowledge and skills in science and incorporate this into their current understanding of the world.
When designing a teaching sequence, it is important to consider the knowledge and skills that students will need in the final Act phase. Consider what the students already know and identify the steps that need to be taken to reach the level required. How could you facilitate students’ understanding at each step? What investigations could be designed to build the skills at each step?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkFollowing an investigation, the Integrate routine provides time and space for data to be evaluated and insights to be synthesized. It reveals new insights, consolidates and refines representations, generalises context and broadens students’ perspectives. It allows student thinking to become visible and opens formative feedback opportunities. It may also lead to further questions being asked, allowing the Inquire phase to start again.
When designing a teaching sequence, consider the diagnostic assessment that was undertaken during the Launch phase. Consider if alternative conceptions could be used as a jumping off point to discussions. How could students represent their learning in a way that would support formative feedback opportunities? Could small summative assessment occur at different stages in the teaching sequence?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkIdentifying and constructing questions is the creative driver of the inquiry process. It allows students to explore what they know and how they know it. During the Inquire phase of the LIA Framework, the Question routine allows for past activities to be reviewed and to set the scene for the investigation that students will undertake. The use of effective questioning techniques can influence students’ view and interpretation of upcoming content, open them to exploration and link to their current interests and science capital.
When designing a teaching sequence, it is important to spend some time considering the mindset of students at the start of each Inquire phase. What do you want students to be thinking about, what do they already know and what is the best way for them to approach the task? What might tap into their curiosity?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkWhich melted faster?
As a class, make a claim to answer the question What happens to the time it takes an ice cube to melt when we change its location (a warm, sunny location compared to a cooler, shaded location)? Refer to the evidence collected to back up your claim.
Return to the Melting scenario cartoon Resource sheet to ask students if they can use their evidence to say why they think Naseera’s frozen treat might have remained mostly frozen, while Codi’s completely melted.
- What did you notice about the ice melting?
- What evidence do you have?
- Is that what you expected to happen?
Pose the question: How can we stop/slow how quickly a frozen item will melt?
The Inquire phase allows students to cycle progressively and with increasing complexity through the key science ideas related to the core concepts. Each Inquire cycle is divided into three teaching and learning routines that allow students to systematically build their knowledge and skills in science and incorporate this into their current understanding of the world.
When designing a teaching sequence, it is important to consider the knowledge and skills that students will need in the final Act phase. Consider what the students already know and identify the steps that need to be taken to reach the level required. How could you facilitate students’ understanding at each step? What investigations could be designed to build the skills at each step?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkThe Investigate routine provides students with an opportunity to explore the key ideas of science, to plan and conduct an investigation, and to gather and record data. The investigations are designed to systematically develop content knowledge and skills through increasingly complex processes of structured inquiry, guided inquiry and open inquiry approaches. Students are encouraged to process data to identify trends and patterns and link them to the real-world context of the teaching sequence.
When designing a teaching sequence, consider the diagnostic assessment (Launch phase) that identified the alternative conceptions that students held. Are there activities that challenge these ideas and provide openings for discussion? What content knowledge and skills do students need to be able to complete the final (Act phase) task? How could you systematically build these through the investigation routines? Are there opportunities to build students’ understanding and skills in the science inquiry processes through the successive investigations?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkCan we stop the melting?
In groups, ask students to discuss what they might do to keep an ice block from melting after it has been taken out of the freezer.
Consider the broad question: What things might affect how quickly something frozen will melt in a lunch box?
Using a demonstration Variables grid Resource sheet, brainstorm the potential variables. For example, the size of the frozen item, the type of lunch box the frozen item is stored in, if the item is wrapped up in anything, how long it’s been out of the freezer, its size, the temperature etc.
Explain that students will be testing if wrapping the frozen item in different materials will affect how quickly it melts, and compose an investigable question: How quickly will a frozen item melt when we change what it is wrapped in?
Optional: Discuss the difference between broad questions and investigable ones.
- Broad questions are designed to gather as many answers, or variables in a scientific sense, as possible. They are often a springboard to further investigation.
- An investigable question is much more narrow. It names what is going to be measured—in this case how fast a frozen item will melt—and what is going to be changed—the material the frozen item is wrapped in. A specific claim, backed up by evidence, can be made to answer an investigable question.
In collaborative teams, students use the Keeping it cool investigation planner Resource sheet to plan, conduct, and record data to answer the investigation question.
If required, model how to create a data table to record the time it takes each ice cube to melt. Students transfer this data table to the Keeping it cool investigation planner Resource sheet and use it to record results.
Students undertake the investigation, timing how long it takes each ice cube to melt completely.
Allow students time to analyse their results. Encourage them to, as a group, make a claim about which variable made the ice melt more quickly, referring to their data as evidence.
Teams might complete a sentence stem such as “The ice melted most quickly when... We think this because…”
Using a variables grid to plan a fair test investigation
How might you support students to conduct an accurate fair test investigation, with a clear investigable question?
All scientific fair tests involve variables. Variables are things that can be changed (independent), measured/observed (dependent) or kept the same (controlled) in an investigation.
When planning a fair test investigation, to make it fair, we need to identify the variables. A variables grid can be used to record the identified variables. We then use these variables to turn a broad question, such as "What affects plant growth?", into an investigable one, such as "What happens to the growth of a plant when I change how much water it gets?".
Investigable questions are characterised by their clear identification of what is being changed and what outcome is being measured in a fair test, supporting students to investigate a specific physical phenomenon.
Investigable questions enable students to plan a fair test investigation. The question they have devised can be answered empirically, and data can be collected to support and justify claims made.
By planning for and conducting a fair test, students can make claims about how the variable they have changed in their investigation may have affected what is being measured and/or observed.
To support students to identify variables, and to use those variables to inform their planning of a fair test, we suggest the handy mnemonic ‘Cows Moo Softly’. This helps students remember the letters C, M and S, representing the three types of variables in a fair test:
- Cows: Change one thing (independent variable)
- Moo: Measure/Observe the outcome (dependent variable) and
- Softly: Keep the other things (controlled variables) the Same
The Inquire phase allows students to cycle progressively and with increasing complexity through the key science ideas related to the core concepts. Each Inquire cycle is divided into three teaching and learning routines that allow students to systematically build their knowledge and skills in science and incorporate this into their current understanding of the world.
When designing a teaching sequence, it is important to consider the knowledge and skills that students will need in the final Act phase. Consider what the students already know and identify the steps that need to be taken to reach the level required. How could you facilitate students’ understanding at each step? What investigations could be designed to build the skills at each step?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkFollowing an investigation, the Integrate routine provides time and space for data to be evaluated and insights to be synthesized. It reveals new insights, consolidates and refines representations, generalises context and broadens students’ perspectives. It allows student thinking to become visible and opens formative feedback opportunities. It may also lead to further questions being asked, allowing the Inquire phase to start again.
When designing a teaching sequence, consider the diagnostic assessment that was undertaken during the Launch phase. Consider if alternative conceptions could be used as a jumping off point to discussions. How could students represent their learning in a way that would support formative feedback opportunities? Could small summative assessment occur at different stages in the teaching sequence?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkWhich material is best?
Each team shares their claims about which ice cube melted the mostly quickly and the most slowly.
Record teams’ claims in a data table in the class science journal. Discuss similarities and differences between the results and materials used.
- What did you notice about the ice melting?
- What evidence do you have?
- Is that what you expected to happen?
- What was similar about all the teams’ results? What was different?
- What does this tell you about the properties of the materials you tested?
- What would you change about the method if you did it again?
Show students the ready-made images and data shown below, which replicates the investigation they just undertook. Discuss the difference between how the data was collected. In this instance, the ice cubes were weighed at specific time intervals to see how many grams/milliliters they had lost over that time.
Discuss if this data matches the evidence that students collected with a different measuring method and why that might be.
Determine as a class which materials were the best and worst at stopping/slowing the melting of the ice cube, in reference to all the available evidence.
Introduce the term ‘thermal insulator’: a material that does not allow heat to pass through it easily. Using the data, determine which material was the best thermal insulator by calculating the volume of water that was lost (by calculating the volume of water lost, students are determining which material allowed the least amount of heat to pass through to the ice cube and melt it). Students share their ideas about what they think happened and why.
Consider the materials tested and ask students to think about why foil was not a good insulator, but bubble wrap is.
Discuss how people use this knowledge in everyday life. For example, insulated water bottles keep drinks cool for longer, and insulation in housing keeps out the heat in summer and keeps in the warmth in winter.
Reflect on the lesson
You might:
- add to the class word wall of vocabulary related to thermal insulation
- re-examine the intended learning goals for the lesson and consider how they were achieved.
- discuss how students were thinking and working like scientists during the lesson. Focus on looking at data to provide evidence.
- consider how what students have investigated will be helpful in designing their food packaging solution.
Heat transfer
What makes a good insulator?
Students may have learned about the transfer of heat in Year 3. Heat is a form of energy that can be transferred or transformed. It is important to always talk about heat and the way it moves—coldness is an absence of heat energy rather than a separate scientific concept. In the example used in this lesson, the ice melts because heat energy is transferred to the ice, causing it to transform from a solid to a liquid. This can be shown using an energy arrow pointing from the surrounding environment to the ice.
Some materials act as insulators, preventing the heat energy from moving to the surface of the ice. The bubble wrap contains air. Heat does not easily move through air. The foil is a metal that allows heat energy to easily move to the surface of the ice. It is a conductor of heat. Therefore, the ice melts quicker when wrapped in foil than in bubble wrap.
Another example of this is the heat in a hot oven. If you touch the metal part of a hot oven, your skin will burn. If you put your hand in the oven without touching any surface, it will take much longer for the heat energy of the air particles to burn your skin.
Students may have learned about the transfer of heat in Year 3. Heat is a form of energy that can be transferred or transformed. It is important to always talk about heat and the way it moves—coldness is an absence of heat energy rather than a separate scientific concept. In the example used in this lesson, the ice melts because heat energy is transferred to the ice, causing it to transform from a solid to a liquid. This can be shown using an energy arrow pointing from the surrounding environment to the ice.
Some materials act as insulators, preventing the heat energy from moving to the surface of the ice. The bubble wrap contains air. Heat does not easily move through air. The foil is a metal that allows heat energy to easily move to the surface of the ice. It is a conductor of heat. Therefore, the ice melts quicker when wrapped in foil than in bubble wrap.
Another example of this is the heat in a hot oven. If you touch the metal part of a hot oven, your skin will burn. If you put your hand in the oven without touching any surface, it will take much longer for the heat energy of the air particles to burn your skin.