Lesson Plans

Temperature (Celsius)

PEPE Lesson Plan Format

(Alabama Professional Education Personnel Evaluation Program)

Written by: Bill Lishman, wlishman@mindspring.com Athens State University (Summer 2001)

Editing, graphics, & formatting by: Dr. Beth McCulloch Vinson

I. Preparing (Planning for instruction)

q Materials:

¨ Alabama Course of Study: Mathematics, page 31, numbers 37 & 40.

¨ Children’s Literature Book: Counting on Frank, by Rod Clement.

¨ Manipulative Thermometer(s) (Celsius and Fahrenheit)

¨ Refrigerator thermometers (Celsius and Fahrenheit)

¨ Container of hot water and container of ice water

¨ Computer with Internet connection

¨ Computer with PowerPoint^© software

¨ Computer projector/screen

¨ Dry erase board/markers

¨ Textbook: Math by Addison Wesley, pages 494-495.

***Note: The symbol located by the name PowerPoint software denotes it is a registered copyrighted product of the Microsoft Corporation.

q Objectives: The students will:

§ Work with Celsius and Fahrenheit scales (Application).

§ Solve Celsius and Fahrenheit conversion problems (Application).

§ Watch a weather forecast and convert the temperatures to Celsius (Application).

§ Group Activity: Each group will design and present to the class their own weather forecast for a different region of the country based on information gathered from watching television. The temperatures will be given both in Fahrenheit and Celsius. Finally, each group will tell what should be worn that day outside. (Synthesis).

q Grade Level: Third

(II). Orienting:

q Anticipatory Set:

The teacher will open by reading the book entitled Counting on Frank, by Rod Clement. During reading, the teacher will point out certain pictures to the class and ask them questions. For example, on the cover, the teacher will ask the students whether the weather would be hot or cold outside based on the way Frank is dressed. “I see that Frank is dressed in a short sleeve shirt and shorts. Can you tell me would it be could outside or hot?” The teacher will elicit responses from the class, then continue in the book.

The teacher will point out several places in the book where Frank would be dressed in shorts and a t-shirt and say “Hmmm, it must really be hot where Frank is. I bet it is summer, wouldn’t you say so? I know I wouldn’t wear a short sleeve shirt and short pants in the middle of winter.”

Next, the teacher will continue through the book and find where Frank is wearing a heavy coat, a thick sweater, and at least 2-3 shirts. Frank is also wearing gloves, a scarf, about 10 hats, and heavy stockings on his feet. The teacher will ask the students “I wonder what time of the year this is? Would you wear all of these clothes in them summer when it is hot? I know I wouldn’t. So, I think we can safely say it is fairly cold out side. What do you think?” During this time, the teacher will be assessing prior knowledge children have about the weather and they way they dress.

After reading the story, the teacher will relate it to how we dress to go outside. To actively engage the students and start them to thinking, the teacher will pose the following scenario. “What if you were watching the weather on Channel 19 and Dan Satterfield told you that tomorrow the temperature was going to be 20 degrees Celsius. What would you wear outside? Would you wear a heavy coat, or just a shirt and shorts. You would want to know how to dress wouldn’t you? How could you tell? How did Frank in the story know what to wear? This concept of Celsius may or may not be new to you. So today we are going to learn a new way of measuring temperature.”

q Purpose:

The teacher will tell the students, “The purpose of today’s lesson is to give you a new way to measure temperature. After today’s lesson, you will be able to impress all your friends and parents by being able to look at a Celsius thermometer and know whether it is hot outside. You may even be able to impress your parents by being able to pick out your own clothes.”

q Connection to previous learning:

The teacher will say, “I know most of you can read a thermometer and should know that 32 degrees is freezing and that 212 degrees is boiling water. Today you will learn new and interesting ways to measure temperature and have fun doing it.”

(III.) Presentation of Information:

q Teaching Procedures:

v The teacher will define “Celsius.” The teacher will say “Celsius is the method of measuring temperatures with the use of the Metric System. The teacher will show the class a Celsius Thermometer using the manipulative thermometers.

v The teacher will write the formula for converting Fahrenheit to Celsius on the board with a marker. C= (F-32)*5/9. In like manner, the formula for Celsius to Fahrenheit will be written: F=9/5(C)+32.

v Using the computer and PowerPoint Software, the teacher will illustrate on the pictorial and symbolic level how temperatures can be converted and give examples of common everyday measurements in both Celsius and Fahrenheit.

v The teacher will also show a concrete example of temperature conversion. First, the teacher will show the class the manipulative thermometer and model and illustrate a think aloud of how conversions can be made.

For example, the teacher will say, “Let’s see. My thermometer tells me it is 25 degrees Celsius outside. Does that mean I should wear a coat or not? Let us use or formula to convert that into Fahrenheit.” The teacher converts it and comes up with the answer of 77. “Well now, 77 seems a little too hot for a coat so I think I better just stay with a short sleeve shirt.” The teacher will then check the other side of the thermometer to see if the answer was correct.

v The next concrete example involves two beakers. The teacher will have water in both of them. One will be filled with an ice/water mixture and the other will be heated up in a microwave until it is boiling. The teacher will then pull out the Celsius thermometer from the ice & water and read what it says. Using the formula, he will convert it to Fahrenheit. To check the answer, the teacher will then read from the Fahrenheit thermometer. The procedure will be followed using the boiling water only he will convert to Celsius from Fahrenheit.

v The teacher will relate the concept of Celsius and Fahrenheit conversions to the real world. He will give examples of common everyday temperature readings the children know such as body temperature and room temperature. In addition, the teacher will point out that more and more commercial thermometers (such as those on a bank or other buildings) are using both metric and English units.

v To integrate the use of technology and the internet, the teacher will show the students web sites they can access to make conversions from English to Metric units.

(IV.) Practice and Summarizing:

q Review:

(Recall) The teacher will ask a volunteer to give the Celsius to Fahrenheit conversion and another volunteer for the Fahrenheit to Celsius.

(Application) The teacher will call on volunteers to come to the board and convert problems he will call out.

(Application and Analysis) Given a scenario of a Celsius temperature, the students will have to convert it to Fahrenheit, determine which season they would most like likely find that temperature, and discuss what they would wear and why.

q Guided Practice:

§ The teacher will have the students get in groups with their manipulative thermometers.

§ The teacher will call out a Celsius temperature and along with the students read the corresponding Fahrenheit temperature.

§ With the use of the Internet, the teacher will go to the conversion web site and practice making conversions. The teacher will first model how to do it and then call on student volunteers to put in the numbers and have other students see if they can figure out the answer.

q Independent Practice:

§ The teacher will have the students work on pages 494-495 numbers 1-14. Then they will get in partners and check each other’s work, compare what they have learned, and help the other out with any problems.

§ The teacher will allow time for students to come in pairs to the computer and use the metric conversion web site pages. They will put in Celsius temperatures and guess whether that would be considered hot, warm or cold.

§ Introduce the Group Activity of developing weather forecasts (see Objectives section) and allow students to brainstorm ideas.

q Summarizing:

The teacher will say, “Today we have learned the importance of Celsius and Fahrenheit temperature and how we can convert from one to another. For tonight, I want you to watch both the local weather and national weather and write down the forecasted temperatures for our city as well as for somewhere in California, somewhere in Texas and somewhere up north. I then want you to convert that to Celsius and share it with the class. Those who do this will earn a free homework pass.”

(V.) Assessment::

For assessment, the teacher will use various methods:

¨ During class time the teacher will have a checklist to make sure the class is understanding the basic concepts wanting to be taught. This will be more of an overall class assessment.

¨ Individual assessment will be based on how well they answered textbook exercises.

¨ Small Group assessment: The groups will receive a grade on their group forecast.

¨ For remediation, the teacher will have special games and manipulatives students can use to help reinforce concepts.

¨ Enrichment will involve a project called “Refrigerator Fun” where a student measures and records the temperature change at regular 10-second intervals for 2 minutes of a thermometer that has been placed in a refrigerator and has now been taken out. The temperatures will be in Celsius and they will be plotted and graphed. An option is to convert them to Fahrenheit.