Description
What our Elements: Hydrogen lesson plan includes
Lesson Objectives and Overview: Elements: Hydrogen is a high-interest reading comprehension lesson plan. As such, students will practice various close reading and comprehension skills. In addition, they will learn about one of the most common elements in the Periodic Table of Elements. This lesson is for students in 5th grade and 6th 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.
Teacher Notes
The paragraph on this page provides a little more information or guidance on what to expect from the lesson. It explains that you can teach this lesson in a whole-class setting or as an independent, small-group activity. You can use the blank lines to record any thoughts or ideas you have as you prepare.
ELEMENTS: HYDROGEN LESSON PLAN CONTENT PAGES
Discovery and Practical Applications
The Elements: Hydrogen lesson plan contains two content pages. Hydrogen was discovered in 1766 by a British scientist named Henry Cavendish. He was experimenting with metals like zinc and acids like sulfuric acid. When he mixed them together, a gas bubbled out. Cavendish noticed this light gas would burn with a pop! Later, a French scientist named Antoine Lavoisier realized this gas formed water when it burned. That’s why he called it hydrogen, which comes from Greek words meaning water former.
There are many applications for hydrogen. It is used in hydrogen fuel cell cars, like the Toyota Mirai. These cars combine hydrogen gas with oxygen from the air to make electricity. Instead of toxic fumes, the only thing that comes out of the tailpipe is clean water vapor! Hydrogen is also used in NASA rockets. The Space Launch System (SLS) rocket uses liquid hydrogen as a powerful fuel to send astronauts into space. In factories, the element helps make things like ammonia for fertilizer, which helps grow our food.
Hydrogen Facts and Why the Element Matters
Hydrogen is the most common element in the universe. It is everywhere around us! Most of it is found in water (H2O). That means every time you drink water, you’re drinking hydrogen atoms! Hydrogen is also inside every plant, animal, and human because it’s part of DNA and proteins. In space, stars like our sun are made mostly of this special element. Inside the sun, hydrogen atoms smash together in nuclear fusion. This is what gives off heat and light. Scientists are working on using fusion energy on Earth to make clean electricity, just as the sun does!
On the Periodic Table, hydrogen is element number one. It’s the lightest and simplest element, with just one proton and one electron. Even though it’s so light, about three-fourths of all matter in the universe is made of this element! Hydrogen was once used to float big airships like the Hindenburg because it’s lighter than air. However, hydrogen is flammable, so after the Hindenburg disaster in 1937, people started using helium, which is much safer. Also, hydrogen gas has no color, taste, or smell, so we can’t detect it without special tools!
Hydrogen is an essential element for both everyday life and science. It helps us power clean vehicles, launch space missions, and grow food. It’s also critical in nature. It forms the water we drink and the molecules in our bodies. In the future, hydrogen could play a big part in solving problems with air pollution and climate change because it can be used to make clean energy.
ELEMENTS: HYDROGEN LESSON PLAN WORKSHEETS
The Elements: Hydrogen lesson plan includes two worksheets: an activity worksheet and a review worksheet. Each one will help students solidify their grasp of the material they learned throughout the lesson. You can refer to the classroom procedure guidelines to know when to hand out each worksheet.
USES OF HYDROGEN ACTIVITY WORKSHEET
For the activity, students will research each example and fill in the missing information on the table. The first one is done for students to get an idea of what they should look for in their answers.
REVIEW WORKSHEET
The review worksheet lists 5 questions based on the content. These questions all relate to the content pages, so students will need to refer to them often for the answers. In addition, each question provides which reading tool the question corresponds to, such as text feature, vocabulary, or comprehension.
Worksheet Answer Keys
At the end of the lesson plan document is an answer key for the practice worksheet. The correct answers are all in red to make it easier for you to compare them with students’ responses. 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.
