Title: Environmental lab equipment

Author: Zyta Sendecka

Target group

Students of the 4th grade of an elementary school.

Core curriculum

4th grade

I. Ways of understanding nature. The student:

2. gives the names of instruments used when understanding nature, determines their purpose (magnifying glass, compass, measuring tape);

The general aim of education

Students name instruments used in cognition of nature and determine their purpose.

Criteria for success

• exchange and describe the elements of the natural laboratory equipment;

• name instruments that help in observation and experience;

• describe the construction of the microscope;

• put together a simple microscope slide.

Key competences

• communication in the mother tongue; 

• communication in foreign languages;

• mathematical competence and basis competences in science and technology;

• digital competence; 

• learning to learn; 

• social and civic competences.

Methods/forms of work

Conversation, work with text, workshop method, and „green pencil” method.

Individual work and group work.

Teaching aids

• abstract;

• interactive or traditional board;

• tablets/computers;

• magnifying glass;

• microscopes;

• boards;

• models;

• cultures;

• potted plants;

• onion;

• water from a lake or puddle;

• distilled water;

• items needed for the microscope slides: slides, cover slips, tweezers, pipettes, paper towel.

Lesson phases

Introduction

1. The teacher gives the subject and the purpose of the lesson in a language that the student understands as well as the criteria for success.

Realization

1. Students read the section „What's in the laboratory?”

2. The teacher presents individual laboratory equipment, and selected students name them and explain what they are used for. The students give examples of instruments that their laboratory does not have, but which according to them should be included in it. They describe the possibilities of using these devices.

3. The students prepare notes on the basis of the abstract about the difference between observation and experience.

4. The teacher asks students how to see something that is invisible to the naked eye. Students analyze the interactive illustration showing the structure of the microscope and then perform the interactive exercise.

5. Students will be introduced to the with interactive illustrations showing preparation of wet and dry microscope. In accordance with the instructions contained therein, prepare preparations for an onion skin.

6. Students carry out microscopic observation of the slides they have made.

7. The teacher instructs the students to describe what they observed under the microscope.

8. The teacher asks students to explain the concept of a microscopic object.

Summary

1. Round of summary sentences. The teacher asks selected students to complete the sentence: „After today's lesson, I can ...”.

The following terms and recordings will be used during this lesson

Terms

Texts and recordings

Environmental lab equipment

What is the difference between a laboratory and other classrooms? Certainly there are many instruments and objects in it that will help in getting to know nature. These can be, for example, didactic boards, maps, models (eg artificial human skeleton). Possibly there are live pot plants, and perhaps also small animals – aquarium fish, snails or hamsters. In the lab, you can also find containers of different substances and beakers and test tubes for experiments.

What are the laboratory's equipment? Didactic boards they show various schemes (eg the construction of an animal) or processes, such as the water cycle in nature. Currently, paper boards are increasingly being replaced with electronic equivalents displayed on the screen or on an interactive whiteboard. Models like the artificial skeleton, solar system model or globe allow us to imagine the actual appearance of things that we can not see with our own eyes, and understand the operation of some of them. Microscopic preparations and dried plants from the herbarium are examples of scientific aids, thanks to which we can look closely at species found in nature, also those that are rare or do not exist in our country. Other equipment of the laboratory are instruments and materials needed to perform various observations and experiments.

The equipment in the laboratory also includes optical instruments. Thanks to magnifying lenses, ie specially shaped transparent objects, it is possible to observe objects that are hardly visible or imperceptible to the naked eye. Such devices are, for example, a magnifier and binoculars. Magnifier allows you to see closely small animals or details of the structure of plants or minerals. Binoculars in turn, it allows you to look at distant objects, like birds on tree branches. A very interesting device is the microscope, thanks to which you can see objects so small that you can not see them with the naked eye. The microscope can magnify their image hundreds of times. Remember that this is a precision device that must be handled with care.

When discussing the construction of optical devices, we will meet with the names of the eyepiece and the lens. The eyepiece is the lens that is closest to our eye, while the lens is the furthest lens through which the light enters the interior of the device.

• In your laboratory you can find, among others Didactic boards, mineral samples, herbals, microscope preparations, as well as optical instruments, globes and beakers.

• An important equipment of the laboratory is the microscope – an optical device used to observe objects invisible to the naked eye.