Tuning into Energy

A few weeks ago fourth graders began a How the World Works unit of inquiry about energy. As a class, they showed some very good knowledge about energy. For example, a couple forms of energy came up when we tuned in, such as electricity, light and sound.

However, the students had many misconceptions too. One activity that brought the misconceptions out was called More True or More False? Partners were given a series of statements about energy. They discussed the statements and decided whether it was more true, or more false. They were surprised to find out they were often incorrect.

In this video two students explain why "sleeping gives us energy". They decided it was More True than False. As you can see, that was the general consensus. See if your daughter can explain why "sleeping gives us energy is actually More False than True.

Here are some other energy statements we considered:

Energy and forces are the same thing.

Energy gets used up and disappears.

Plants make energy.