I am currently looking at the new framworks and I see that in the 7th grade there is a unit on energy transformations. No suggested activities or resources are mentioned. Could you please direct me, ao I may find activities and lessons.

-- Jeffrey Lee (jojin4@aol.com), August 27, 2001

Answers

Most schools will be using Prentice Hall's Sound & Light as a base. No need to cover the whole book and in fact I would suggest focusing (no pun intended) on the light part of the book. You still need some supplemental material on potential and kinetic energy and transformations. Here's a couple of activities on potential and kinetic energy -- (as a general rule, turn demonstrations into group activities whenever possible):

Ball & Ramp

Roller Coaster

Rube Goldberg or Simple Machines

Also check out The Gateway for a long list of activities. Also in each school there are different other materials and kits that night be useful. Talk to your Science AP and we can go over it together when I visit your school...

-- Michael Gatton (mg143@aol.com), August 29, 2001.

Here's another link to a page with a long list of science activities for all areas of science -- broken down by topic and not overwhelmingly long.

-- Michael Gatton (mg143@aol.com), August 30, 2001.

The Board of Ed has some Suggested Activities that are quite extensive, including one on Rube Goldberg machines (again) and one on Orange Juice Clocks (chemical- electrical-mechanical energy transformations). Includes Student Worksheets and teacher background information. For Geology there's a "Rocks" activity.

For Grade 8 there is a genetics activity that looks quite interesting.

-- Michael Gatton (mg143@aol.com), September 06, 2001.