Evaporation Investigation
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Summary:
This lesson is primarily for elementary school teachers who are looking for a hands-on inquiry based activity to teach their students about evaporation.
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Big Idea
Water can "disappear" or evaporate into the air.
Key Concepts
- Evaporation occurs when a liquid is changed into a gas.
- Rate of evaporation increases when the temperature of a liquid is increased.
- Water moves around our planet in the water cycle.
Essential Questions
- How does water change?
- How does water move?
- How does life depend on water?
- Where does water go when it is evaporated?
Knowledge and Skills
- Observe the process of evaporation or the "disappearance of wetness into the air."
- Compare and contrast their observations made before and after the evaporation experiement.
- Construct a diagram of the experiment and use it explain the results.
- Describe the process of evaporation, and the general water cycle, through discussion and pictures.
Prior Knowledge
- Some events in nature have a repeating pattern - such as daily weather patterns or changes in temperature and the appearance of rain and snow at different times of the year.
- Water can be a liquid, solid or gas and can go back and forth from one form to the other.
Common Preconceptions
- At the elementary grades, evaporation and condensation will mean nothing different from disappearance and appearance.
- Students have a difficult time accepting the idea of invisible particles of water in the air.
- Students understand the concept of boiling and freezing well before understanding evaporation and condensation.
- When water evaporates, it just disappears and ceases to exist.
- When water evaporates, it immediately goes up to the clouds or into the sun.
Original Source
https://aquarius.umaine.edu/cgi/ed_act.htm?id=10
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