Description
What our Elements: Nitrogen lesson plan includes
Lesson Objectives and Overview: Elements: Nitrogen 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: NITROGEN LESSON PLAN CONTENT PAGES
Discovery and Practical Applications
The Elements: Nitrogen lesson plan contains two content pages. In 1772, Scottish scientist Daniel Rutherford discovered nitrogen. He conducted experiments where he removed oxygen and carbon dioxide from the air and found that the remaining gas could not support combustion or life. This “noxious air,” as he called it, was nitrogen. Around the same time, other scientists like Henry Cavendish and Joseph Priestley also studied this nonreactive portion of air, but Rutherford is credited with its discovery.
Nitrogen is helpful in many ways that affect our everyday lives. One crucial example is fertilizer. Farmers add nitrogen-rich fertilizers to fields because plants need the element to grow healthy and strong. It helps plants make proteins, like building blocks that allow them to grow taller and produce more fruits or vegetables. Another cool use of nitrogen is in food preservation. Liquid nitrogen is so cold that it can instantly freeze foods like ice cream or strawberries, keeping them fresh and tasty. It is also helpful in protecting snacks like potato chips. The bags are filled with nitrogen gas to keep the chips crunchy and prevent them from getting stale.
Nitrogen Facts and Why the Element Matters
This element is all around us—in the air, the ground, and even our bodies! About 78% of the air we breathe is actually nitrogen gas. But even though it’s everywhere, plants and animals can’t use it directly from the air. That’s where special bacteria in the soil come in. These bacteria turn nitrogen gas into forms that plants can use to grow. This process is called nitrogen fixation. When we eat vegetables or meat, we get nitrogen as well, and the proteins make up our muscles and organs. Nitrogen is also used to make nylon (used in clothes and backpacks) and rocket fuel!
Even though nitrogen is all around us in the air, it doesn’t help us breathe as oxygen does. It just hangs out and keeps things stable. It is also used in car airbags. When there’s a crash, chemicals in the airbag quickly create nitrogen gas. This fills the bag in less than a second to protect you. Liquid nitrogen is another cool form—literally. Remember, it’s so cold that it can freeze things instantly! People use it to make ice cream that looks like it’s smoking, and scientists use it in labs to keep things cold.
Nitrogen is super essential for life on Earth. Every plant, animal, and human needs nitrogen to survive because it’s a key part of proteins and DNA, the special code inside all living things. Without it, plants wouldn’t grow the food we eat, such as apples and carrots, or even pizza ingredients like wheat and tomatoes. Animals and humans need nitrogen to build strong muscles and stay healthy. It is also helpful in science and technology. It protects food in packages, helps airbags inflate, and even makes fun things like freezing ice cream with fog!
ELEMENTS: NITROGEN LESSON PLAN WORKSHEETS
The Elements: Nitrogen 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.
DIPPIN’ DOTS ACTIVITY WORKSHEET
For the activity, students will eat Dippin’ Dots as they learn about how these yummy deserts were made. There are three questions to answer at that bottom of the worksheet page.
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.
