Description
What our Biomass and Biofuel lesson plan includes
Lesson Objectives and Overview: Biomass and Biofuel teaches students about these concepts and what they mean. Students will discover examples of substances that fall into the categories. They will also learn some of the pros and cons of using these and be able to explain these ideas to others. This lesson is for students in 3rd grade and 4th grade.
Classroom Procedure
Every lesson plan provides you with a classroom procedure page that outlines a step-by-step guide to follow. You do not have to follow the guide exactly. The guide helps you organize the lesson and details when to hand out worksheets. It also lists information in the yellow box that you might find useful. You will find the lesson objectives, state standards, and number of class sessions the lesson should take to complete in this area. In addition, it describes the supplies you will need as well as what and how you need to prepare beforehand. For this lesson, you will need to provide colored pencils or markers, construction paper or poster paper, and scratch paper. Students will also need access to the internet.
Options for Lesson
The “Options for Lesson” section provides several suggestions for additional activities or tasks that you could incorporate into the lesson if you have time or want to extend it. A couple of these ideas relate to the activity specifically. Students could work in small groups or alone rather than in pairs. After everyone finishes their posters, students could hold a vote with different categories, such as best, most creative, most colorful, etc. Another option is to plan the lesson during Earth Day or as part of a week dedicated to preventing pollution. You could invite a community member involved in a recycling program at a landfill to speak with students and answer their questions. One more idea is to invite a mechanic who understands the use of vegetable oil in place of gasoline for an engine to speak with the class.
Teacher Notes
The paragraph on this page provides a little more information or guidance on what to expect from the lesson. It suggests that you teach this lesson in conjunction with others that relate to the environment, plants, pollution, and other similar topics. You can use the blank lines to record any thoughts you ideas you have as you prepare.
BIOMASS AND BIOFUEL LESSON PLAN WORKSHEETS
The Biomass and Biofuel lesson plan includes three worksheets: an activity worksheet, a practice worksheet, and a homework assignment. Each worksheet helps reinforce students’ comprehension of the lesson material and allows them to demonstrate what they learned in different ways. Refer to the guidelines on the classroom procedure page to determine when to distribute the hand outs to the class.
ALTERNATIVE FUELS POSTER ACTIVITY WORKSHEET
Students will work with a partner to create a poster that encourages people to use alternative fuels. The posters can include words, images (either hand-drawn or from online), logos, slogans, and so on to show viewers how beneficial other fuel sources can be for society. Students can use the box on the worksheet to sketch a rough draft of the poster and then use construction paper or a poster board for the final copy. You will have to approve of students’ rough drafts before they begin work on their final drafts.
MATCHING AND YES OR NO PRACTICE WORKSHEET
The practice worksheet divides into two parts. For the first part, students will match definitions to the correct terms. There are 12 definitions and 12 terms in the word bank on the right-hand side of the page. The second part requires students to answer yes or no to eight questions. You may or may not choose to allow students to use the content pages for reference to complete this assignment.
BIOMASS AND BIOFUEL HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT
Similar to the practice worksheet, the homework assignment has two sections. The the first section requires students to decide whether each of 10 facts relates to wood (W), crops (C), landfill gas (L) or alcohol fuels (A). For the second section, students will respond to five prompts that require them to explain various concepts that relate to what they learned in the lesson.
Worksheet Answer Keys
The last pages of the PDF are answer keys for both the practice and homework worksheets. The correct answers are in red, which makes it easy to compare to students’ work. For the most part, students’ responses should mirror those on the answer keys. However, given the nature of the second part of the homework assignment, there will be some variation in students’ explanations. If you choose to administer the lesson pages to your students via PDF, you will need to save a new file that omits these pages. Otherwise, you can simply print out the applicable pages and keep these as reference for yourself when grading assignments.
