Unit Overview
This unit is expected to take 3 full weeks to complete, allowing time to present the final projects to the class and a day for an in-class evaluation of the unit and the group efforts. All elements can be adapted to meet the needs of your class. Word documents of the activities are available and can be edited. We have designed an entry event and 3 activities to help introduce students to the mathematical content and see the different possible considerations regarding fuel types.
The events scheduled throughout the unit are as follows:
This unit is expected to take 3 full weeks to complete, allowing time to present the final projects to the class and a day for an in-class evaluation of the unit and the group efforts. All elements can be adapted to meet the needs of your class. Word documents of the activities are available and can be edited. We have designed an entry event and 3 activities to help introduce students to the mathematical content and see the different possible considerations regarding fuel types.
The events scheduled throughout the unit are as follows:
- Class Trip (entry event)
- Carbon Cycle Activity (all students must participate)
- Candle Lab (student choice between this and the Lemonade Mix)
- Lemonade Mix (student choice between this and the Candle Lab)
- Life of a School Bus (video)
- Use of biofuels (video)
- Final Project presentation (all students must participate)
Focus on Teacher
Introduction to Standards
At the beginning of the project, students will be introduced to this (potentially) new method of instruction and the responsibilities expected by the students to meet the standards. These responsibilities will be presented and posted in the room for the entirety of the unit and will include:
Entry Event
The entry event, Class Trip, will capture the students’ attention by allowing them to choose a place for the class to visit, where they must calculate the cost of travel by school bus. Once they have chosen a location for the class to go, they will have to think about what other variables/information they need to know in order to calculate the cost per student (cost of fuel, average miles per gallon for a bus, distance to location). From here, the students would research these things and then begin to solve the problem. Once the students have completed the calculation, they will present this information to the class (chosen location and cost per student). The teacher will have a table drawn on the board for the groups to fill in.
Once each group has presented, the teacher will pose the question: what could we do to reduce this cost? Students would think on this individually for a couple minutes and write down their ideas, and then get into groups to share with each other, before the teacher brought the class back together to discuss with everyone. Some ideas the students may have are using a different mode of transportation or switching to a different type of bus with higher miles per gallon. This would get the students thinking about some different changes that could be made and will begin the inquiry process.
Just in Time
We will be using exit slips to see how well the students understand the concepts. Depending on the number of students who do not get the question correct, we will either do a small group discussion or do a mini-lesson the following day. A place where students may struggle is with the Lemonade Mix Activity. If the students are struggling then below is a problem that we would give them to work on and go through it with them as a class or in a small group, depending on the situation.
Sample Problem: Suppose you are making a trail mix with nuts and chocolate chips. A bag of nuts is 3 pounds and a bag of chocolate chips is 1/2 pound. If you mix 2 bags of nuts with 4 bags of chocolate chips, what percentage is each ingredient?
Focus on Students
Possible Investigations
We foresee a variety of directions students could take their project, including the following:
Data Collection and Evidence
Depending on how students choose to explore the problems, students will be collecting data on past and present costs of fuel, fuel efficiency and carbon emissions of different fuels and vehicles, different mixtures of fuels and their cost and fuel efficiency, and distances from refineries or distribution centers to gas stations or the school.
Students will be required to show the data that they collect, as well as graphical or other visual representations of the data. They may find examples of similar projects or research done and use it to support their argument. However, this evidence should be secondary to their own data and interpretation. All students must also project their data into the future.
Activities
All students will be required to participate in the Carbon Cycle Activity and one of either the Lemonade Mix Activity or Candle Lab. Each of the activities is meant to help students understand the many issues around choosing which fuel is best for the school bus fleet before they choose which direction to go with their investigation. In addition, each activity addresses different biofuel and mathematics standards that students need to learn as part of the unit. The activities are:
Ownership and Engagement
The activities are all interactive. The Carbon Cycle activity has students moving around the room; in the Lemonade Activity students are choosing their own “best” lemonade mixture; and in the Candle Lab, students get to use matches, which many students look forward to! Students get a choice between the Lemonade Mix activity and Candle Lab, which gives them ownership of their work. When students choose groups for their main project, some might have completed different labs and could share information with each other that they learned from their lab. Students will have strong ownership over their project and final presentation to the school board because they will be pursuing a direction that they have chosen, and they will have some choice about how to present their information and recommendations.
Connections to Biofuel Objectives
In terms of biofuels, students will learn the objectives through the activities, videos, and classroom discussions.
Choice and Responsibility
Scaffolding
Because students will have a lot of responsibility in creating their final presentation, the instructor will have to provide some scaffolding to prepare them for this task. In each activity, students have some type of choice, a collaboration aspect as well as some form of presentation. Each activity also serves as a problem that the students need to find the answer to that is not just a simple calculation that they could look up in a textbook. By creating activities in this way and engaging students through them, they are getting prepared to complete their larger project.
For example, the students will choose between the Lemonade Mix activity or the Candle Lab. For all of the activities, students will be working in groups to accomplish them. For example in the Lemonade Mix lab, the students will have specific roles: recorder, mixer and taster. Students will also need to get in front of the class and talk during some of the activities. For the Class Trip activity, students will have to tell their classmates where they chose to go and how much they calculated it would cost for each student to go.
Focus on Content
Class Trip (Entry Event): In this activity, students will apply knowledge about conversions of units to figure out how much it would cost to drive a bus a certain distance. A discussion following this activity will help them think about how they could reduce these costs, eventually leading to a discussion about biofuels as an alternative to diesel.
Carbon Cycle Activity: This activity helps students see how carbon moves through four biospheres. The class will discuss how biomass is a carbon sink that can balance the amount of carbon emitted by burning fuel. Students may wish to pursue this topic more in their group project.
Candle Lab: This lab will help students see that different fuels have different levels of efficiency. Each of the candles (soy, vegetable oil, and paraffin) should burn at different rates, which correlates to how fuels burn in vehicles. Depending on time, the class might discuss why this occurs - more or less oxygen in the molecules, which is called energy density. If a group of students chooses to look at energy efficiency of fuels, they can apply this knowledge to figuring out which biofuel is a better alternative to biodiesel.
Lemonade Mix Activity: This activity is designed to get students thinking about the possibility of mixing fuels to maximize two or more variables. Students may choose to look at maximizing cost and energy efficiency by mixing different types of fuels.
Introduction to Standards
At the beginning of the project, students will be introduced to this (potentially) new method of instruction and the responsibilities expected by the students to meet the standards. These responsibilities will be presented and posted in the room for the entirety of the unit and will include:
- Be respectful of your group members by doing your part
- Be attentive to the needs of other groups by sharing resources when needed
- Stay on task in order to ensure optimal learning and safety
- Ask your group members, other classmates, resources or the instructor if you have questions
Entry Event
The entry event, Class Trip, will capture the students’ attention by allowing them to choose a place for the class to visit, where they must calculate the cost of travel by school bus. Once they have chosen a location for the class to go, they will have to think about what other variables/information they need to know in order to calculate the cost per student (cost of fuel, average miles per gallon for a bus, distance to location). From here, the students would research these things and then begin to solve the problem. Once the students have completed the calculation, they will present this information to the class (chosen location and cost per student). The teacher will have a table drawn on the board for the groups to fill in.
Once each group has presented, the teacher will pose the question: what could we do to reduce this cost? Students would think on this individually for a couple minutes and write down their ideas, and then get into groups to share with each other, before the teacher brought the class back together to discuss with everyone. Some ideas the students may have are using a different mode of transportation or switching to a different type of bus with higher miles per gallon. This would get the students thinking about some different changes that could be made and will begin the inquiry process.
Just in Time
We will be using exit slips to see how well the students understand the concepts. Depending on the number of students who do not get the question correct, we will either do a small group discussion or do a mini-lesson the following day. A place where students may struggle is with the Lemonade Mix Activity. If the students are struggling then below is a problem that we would give them to work on and go through it with them as a class or in a small group, depending on the situation.
Sample Problem: Suppose you are making a trail mix with nuts and chocolate chips. A bag of nuts is 3 pounds and a bag of chocolate chips is 1/2 pound. If you mix 2 bags of nuts with 4 bags of chocolate chips, what percentage is each ingredient?
Focus on Students
Possible Investigations
We foresee a variety of directions students could take their project, including the following:
- Cost analysis of biofuels vs. diesel
- Fuel efficiency of biofuels vs. diesel
- Environmental impact of biofuels vs. diesel, specifically carbon emissions
- Maximizing cost and fuel efficiency by mixing biofuels and diesel
Data Collection and Evidence
Depending on how students choose to explore the problems, students will be collecting data on past and present costs of fuel, fuel efficiency and carbon emissions of different fuels and vehicles, different mixtures of fuels and their cost and fuel efficiency, and distances from refineries or distribution centers to gas stations or the school.
Students will be required to show the data that they collect, as well as graphical or other visual representations of the data. They may find examples of similar projects or research done and use it to support their argument. However, this evidence should be secondary to their own data and interpretation. All students must also project their data into the future.
Activities
All students will be required to participate in the Carbon Cycle Activity and one of either the Lemonade Mix Activity or Candle Lab. Each of the activities is meant to help students understand the many issues around choosing which fuel is best for the school bus fleet before they choose which direction to go with their investigation. In addition, each activity addresses different biofuel and mathematics standards that students need to learn as part of the unit. The activities are:
- Carbon Cycle: This is an interactive activity
where students see how carbon molecules cycle through four spheres – biosphere,
lithosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere – during the pre- and post-Industrial period.
Students will learn that fossil fuels entered the cycle in post-Industrial
times. The point is to get students thinking about the environmental impact of
using fossil fuels to run cars. Some students may choose to investigate carbon
emissions of buses that run on biofuel vs. diesel for their main project.
- Lemonade Mix: In this small group activity, students will start with a lemon juice and water mix, and they will slowly add sugar in specified amounts to come up with the best-tasting lemonade. This activity is meant to get students thinking about optimizing mixtures for a certain purpose, and could eventually lead students to thinking about mixing fuels to optimize cost and fuel efficiency.
- Candle Lab: Students will work in small groups and complete a lab that looks at candles made of three different materials – soy, vegetable oil, and paraffin, which is petroleum-based – to determine which one burns faster. Students will make a connection between the candles and different fuels (petroleum-based vs. non-petroleum-based) to conclude which fuel would last longer in a vehicle.
- Exit Slips: Students will complete an exit slip almost every day. These were created in a way that it gives the students a chance to reflect on what they have been doing that day and what they have learned. Also, these will serve as a way for the teacher to see what each group member is contributing to within the project. It also serves as a way for the teacher to understand what students know or do know so they can complete a just in time activity with the students the next do or go over some main points again.
Ownership and Engagement
The activities are all interactive. The Carbon Cycle activity has students moving around the room; in the Lemonade Activity students are choosing their own “best” lemonade mixture; and in the Candle Lab, students get to use matches, which many students look forward to! Students get a choice between the Lemonade Mix activity and Candle Lab, which gives them ownership of their work. When students choose groups for their main project, some might have completed different labs and could share information with each other that they learned from their lab. Students will have strong ownership over their project and final presentation to the school board because they will be pursuing a direction that they have chosen, and they will have some choice about how to present their information and recommendations.
Connections to Biofuel Objectives
In terms of biofuels, students will learn the objectives through the activities, videos, and classroom discussions.
- The Candle Lab, specifically, will help students understand how different fuels have different levels of efficiency. Depending on time, the instructor may address with students that this is due to the amount of oxygen molecules present in biofuels vs. fossil fuels. They can then apply this idea to determining whether biofuel is a better alternative to biodiesel in this regard.
- Through doing the Lemonade Mix activity, students will understand that it is possible to mix fuels and doing so can create a fuel that optimizes cost and efficiency.
- During the Carbon Cycle activity, students will learn how the carbon cycle has changed over time, specifically with the post-Industrial Revolution addition of fossil fuels into the cycle. This will help them understand the importance and impact of carbon emissions from different fuel types.
- There will be a day (see Thursday, WEEK 2 in Timeline) when the instructor directly addresses biofuel concepts, including drop-in biofuels.
- The Biofuels video introduces students to the idea of converting biomass to biofuels and is meant to introduce the discussion of renewable fuels. The Soy-Powered Bus video can provide a deeper understanding of the use of biofuels and create a potential basis for the student's recommendations.
- The Life of a Bus video helps to debrief the entry event and discusses the importance of fuel because of the amount of miles driven by the average bus.
Choice and Responsibility
- Within the Class Trip activity, students will choose a destination for which they will have to calculate cost of travel (cost based on fuel alone).
- Students will also choose between the Lemonade Mix activity and the Candle Lab, as well as when they choose their groups for their big presentation.
- In terms of their final project and presentation, students will choose their groups and the direction of their project. They will also choose the format of their final presentation.
- Where students have choice, they also have responsibility. Choosing their groups is a big responsibility because it will affect how their project goes and group dynamics.
- Students will have a great deal of responsibility in pursuing a direction with their project. They will have to find information and data to back up their recommendations to the school board.
Scaffolding
Because students will have a lot of responsibility in creating their final presentation, the instructor will have to provide some scaffolding to prepare them for this task. In each activity, students have some type of choice, a collaboration aspect as well as some form of presentation. Each activity also serves as a problem that the students need to find the answer to that is not just a simple calculation that they could look up in a textbook. By creating activities in this way and engaging students through them, they are getting prepared to complete their larger project.
For example, the students will choose between the Lemonade Mix activity or the Candle Lab. For all of the activities, students will be working in groups to accomplish them. For example in the Lemonade Mix lab, the students will have specific roles: recorder, mixer and taster. Students will also need to get in front of the class and talk during some of the activities. For the Class Trip activity, students will have to tell their classmates where they chose to go and how much they calculated it would cost for each student to go.
Focus on Content
Class Trip (Entry Event): In this activity, students will apply knowledge about conversions of units to figure out how much it would cost to drive a bus a certain distance. A discussion following this activity will help them think about how they could reduce these costs, eventually leading to a discussion about biofuels as an alternative to diesel.
Carbon Cycle Activity: This activity helps students see how carbon moves through four biospheres. The class will discuss how biomass is a carbon sink that can balance the amount of carbon emitted by burning fuel. Students may wish to pursue this topic more in their group project.
Candle Lab: This lab will help students see that different fuels have different levels of efficiency. Each of the candles (soy, vegetable oil, and paraffin) should burn at different rates, which correlates to how fuels burn in vehicles. Depending on time, the class might discuss why this occurs - more or less oxygen in the molecules, which is called energy density. If a group of students chooses to look at energy efficiency of fuels, they can apply this knowledge to figuring out which biofuel is a better alternative to biodiesel.
Lemonade Mix Activity: This activity is designed to get students thinking about the possibility of mixing fuels to maximize two or more variables. Students may choose to look at maximizing cost and energy efficiency by mixing different types of fuels.