TOPIC: ATMOSPHERE
LEVEL: Advanced
"What Is 1,000,000?"
[information |
preparation |
activity ]
- SCIENCE CONCEPT:
- Air pollution is a serious problem for today's world.
Pollution is measured in the atmosphere by parts per million or ppm.
Measuring a million is a difficult concept, but given the concrete,
students will be able to better visualize the ppm.
- STUDENT OBJECTIVE:
- Students will observe through 3 activities how to
measure 1,000,000 and to better understand the parts per million when
measuring 1,000,000.
- OVERVIEW:
- In this activity, students will be constructing a 1 inch
container and filling it with rice grains. Students will then count how
many grains of rice will fill the container. Given the amount of rice
grains it takes to fill one container, how many cubic inches would a box
have to hold 1,000,000 grains of rice.
- TEACHER TEXT:
- Pollution is a major world problem. Scientists have devised a system
to measure the pollutants in the air. Pollutants are measured in
parts per million or ppm. What does ppm look like? 1,000,000 is an
abstract number to visualize due to its size. Putting 1,000,000 into
perspective will allow this number to become concrete. To look at
1,000,000, it would look like this: 1000 x 1000 or 100 x 10,000 or
10 x 100,000. This is too difficult to count. By building a model,
a better understanding of 1,000,000 will be understood.
PREPARATION TIME: 10 minutes
LESSON TIME: 60 minutes
TEACHER PREP:
- gather all materials and place on table for students to gather.
WORDS TO KNOW:
- pollution
- parts per million
- cubic inch
MATERIALS NEEDED:
- construction paper
- scissors
- scotch tape
- rice
- 10 pennies
- deck of playing cards
- ruler
- balance or postage scale
- STEPS TO FOLLOW:
- 1. Use construction paper to build a box1 inch on each side.
- 2 Fill the box with rice-level to the top.
- 3. Count the number of grains of rice in the box.
- 4. How many cubic inches would a box have to be to hold 1,000,000
grains of rice?
- 5. Place 10 pennies on the balance scale.
- 6. Record the weight.
- 7. How much would 1,000,000 pennies weigh?
- 8. remove 2 cards from a deck of playing cards
- 9. Use a ruler to measure the thickness of the stack.
- 10. How thick is the stack of 50 cards?
- 11. How high would a stack of 1,000,000 cards be? In inches? In feet?
In meters?
- WHY?
- Students will be able to understand comprehend 1,000,000.
- ASSESSMENT: Can the student communicate what they observed?
- 4....Student is able to communicate that 1,000,000 is 1000 x 1000,
or 100 x 10,000 or 10, 100,000. Student will also be able to
communicate that pollutants are measured in parts per million or
ppm.
- 3....Student will be able to communicate that pollutants are
measurable in parts per million.
- 2....Students will be able to communicate pollution is a serious
problem.
- 1....Students will be able to communicate that 1,000,000 is a large
number.