Earth and Sky - Breath of Life

Focus: We cannot see, smell, feel, or taste the air around us, and yet it is vitally important to us and to all other life on Earth.

Puppets (Henry, Treasure Chest, Herbie Hare, Sammy Salmon, Wendy Worm, Greta Grasshopper, Goldie Goldenrod)

Materials Checklist
Puppet Show (puppets, script, treasure chest)
Air Charades (Uses of Air cards, optional props – furry clothes, combs and rulers, feathers, paper helicopters, balloons, cloth capes or towels)
Air Pocket (clear drinking glass, aquarium, tissue, plastic zip-closing bag)
Newsbreak (several sheets of full-size newspaper, wooden paint sticks)
Pop the Top (clean, empty half-gallon milk jug with pop-off top, bicycle pump with ball needle, tack)
Scrambled Eggs (matches, glass milk bottle, peeled hard-boiled egg, square paper, drinking straw)
Outdoor Air Search (Air Search cards, clipboards, pencils)
Parachute Plunge (plastic grocery bags, small pine or spruce cones, pipe cleaners or yarn, optional construction materials: paper plates, paper cups, cellophane, scrap fabric, gauze, scissors, tape)

Supplemental Reference Materials (Air Search card, Outdoor Air Search, Air Charades, Helicopter Stencil, Lung diagram information sheet, Lung diagram)

Additional Reading/Resources
Science With Air, by M. Butterfield and H. Edom, Usbourne Science Activities, London, 1992.

ELF Notes - Template for newsletter on Breath of Life
*Word document * pdf file

Teaching Suggestions

If there are latex allergies in the school (the school nurse might know), latex-free substitutes for elastic bands and balloons are available. An Internet search for "latex-free balloons" or "latex-free office products" will give you many options.

Puppet Show
Some folks get confused when we mention that plants (Goldie Goldenrod) need air. Remember that in addition to creating sugars and releasing oxygen during photosynthesis, plants also use oxygen to convert stored sugars to the energy they need for growing, reproducing, transporting nutrients, etc.

What special challenges do city dwellers have regarding air quality? Smoke and exhaust from factories and chimneys, cars and even woodstoves, pollutes the air. What helps clean the air in the city? Trees and green spaces use carbon dioxide to make their food, removing it from the air and giving off oxygen as a byproduct. But since it's mainly the leaves that perform this function, cities don't get that benefit in the winter.

Air Charades
Rather than having the children do the skits, volunteers can dress up and ask the children to guess the use of air they are demonstrating. List the different possibilities on the chalkboard ahead of time.

Find pictures of each animal described in the charades. Make enough copies of these pictures to provide a set to children in small groups. Then read the descriptions provided on the charade card and have children select which animal matches the description.

Pop the Top
Poke a hole in the milk container with a thumbtack before inserting the needle so the needle doesn't break.
Have extra needles on hand in case one breaks. You might also want more than one pump and extra bottles as the hole enlarges and it takes longer and longer to pop the top.

One volunteer sprayed perfume in the air and asked kids when they could smell it. She then talked about how air molecules move and carry scent and other things.

To help students understand the meaning of “volume” and “pressure,” provide a pint, a quart, and a gallon container. Ask the group to count how many pumps it takes to pop the top off each container.

Younger children need an adult to hold the bottle to help prevent the needle from breaking.

Scrambled Eggs
Do the demonstration and then ask the students to work out an explanation, instead of just giving it to them ahead of time.

Try using a smallish egg and wet it slightly. This way the egg doesn't break and it is easier to reverse the process.

Smaller containers get quicker and more consistently successful results.

Because of fire/matches issue- some groups used jar in hot water to jar in ice water and egg gets sucked in.

If the milk bottle is quite cold before the burning paper is dropped in, the egg drops in more quickly.

Having trouble getting the egg back out? Center the egg back over the throat of the bottle, hold upside down over paper, insert the needle from the pump, and PUMP!

Parachute Plunge
Several groups used the parachutes as another station. Several added more variety to the type of parachute the kids could make by providing paper plates, coffee filters, paper cups, etc. Also, include some clip to hold the strings together – this helps when kids are trying to modify the weight to get the parachute to fly better.

Large basket-type coffee filters make nice, easy parachutes. Tape a thread across the basket and tie a paper clip to the ends of the thread.

Other possible experiments
1. Cartesian diver - can be made with a liter plastic soda bottle with an eye dropper or pen cap inside. Squeeze the bottle, the dropper will sink. ( I always bring this one along for groups to try to figure out in case any finish their station early.)
2. Levitating ping pong balls with a hair dryer
3. Lung model made with soda bottle and straw and thick balloon
4. Demonstrating that oxygen is needed for a flame to burn.
a) First light a candle and explain that oxygen, one component in air, is used in burning. Demonstrate this by lighting a second candle then placing a glass container over one and observing which burns longer. What's left in the bottle? (Nitrogen, Carbon Dioxide, etc. and though the oxygen level decreases, there still is some present.)
b) Demonstrate how carbon dioxide gas will displace oxygen and extinguish a flame. Explain that some kinds of molecules are larger and heavier than others. Now, place a couple tablespoons of baking soda in a jar whose neck tapers. Pour in about an equal amount of vinegar and allow bubbling reaction to proceed. Once bubbling ceases, carefully "pour" the air in the bottle onto the candle flame, keeping the wet residue inside the bottle. Why does the flame go out? (The flame needs oxygen to burn; the heavier carbon dioxide pushes the oxygen away so the flame goes out.)

Extensions
Some folks used Breath of Life extension as an extra station.
Information on lungs and lung disease is available from the Lung Association.
Consider including the extension activity Exercise Energy as a whole group discussion.

One school invited a firefighter to speak to the students. He talked about a firefighter's need for oxygen to breathe while fighting the fire, but also the work of a firefighter to starve the fire of oxygen.

One volunteer brought in a one-inch-square piece of wood and a 15 pound weight so that the kids could see and feel what air pressure at sea level is really all about.

Learning Goals

Concepts/Ideas

• Air is the invisible mixture of gases that surrounds the earth providing nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, and hydrogen that are essential to plants and animals.
• Air protects the planet, transmits sound waves, carries smells, supports birds and other animals in flight, and moves pollen and seeds.
• Air takes up space and expands when it is heated and contracts when cooled. Air has weight and exerts pressure.
• Although we cannot see, feel, smell or taste the air, we can see things moved by the wind, smell scents it carries, feel it when the wind blows, and know each time we take a breath that it is essential to life.

Vocabulary: Air, Gases, Oxygen, Carbon Dioxide, Expand, Contract, Air Pressure

Skills

• Active listening to understand that air is important to plants and animals.
• Role-playing to discover ways that air is important to living things besides providing oxygen to breathe.
• Observing through demonstration the properties of air; air takes up space, exerts pressure in all directions, pushes out with strength when it is compressed, and expands when heated, and contracts when cooled.
• Finding and recording examples of the properties of air in action in the outdoors.
• Experimenting to investigate how air trapped in a parachute slows the speed of a falling object.

Grade Expectations:
Grades PK-K (S9, S30) Living things need air to survive. Air is all around us even though we can't see, hear, or see it.

Grades 1-2 (S9, S48) Air surrounds the earth. It carries smells, supports birds in flight and moves pollen and seeds.

Grades 3-4 (S12, S13, S48) Air is a gas that can be observed, described and measured. Air takes up as much space as you give it.

Grades 5-6 (S12, S13) Air is a gas that has mass. It expands when heated and contracts when cooled.

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