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Teacher's Guide

Activity 1
Activity 2
Activity 3

Resources
Glossary

1.  Introduction:  Invisible Forces is a curriculum web that will introduce the students to magnetic forces and will discover ways that these forces can be applied.  The students will participate in activities designed to understand magnetism and determine the strength and orientation of magnetic poles.  

2.  Aim:  The aim of the “Invisible Forces” curriculum web is to help Grade 3 students investigate and understand the force of magnets through scientific experiments.  This process will help the students develop an evolving combination of science-related knowledge, skills and attitudes.  The Curriculum Web also aims to provide opportunities for the students to use their computer skills.

3.  Rationale:  In today’s world, teachers must support students to become lifelong learners and to maintain a sense of wonder about the world around them.  To develop this, students require diverse learning experiences that provide opportunities to explore, analyze, evaluate, synthesize, appreciate, and understand the interrelationships among science, technology, society, and the environment.
In this curriculum web, the activities include opportunities for students to develop their understanding of magnets and scientific knowledge.  They will learn to use steps of the scientific method to be better organized in their experiments and this will make the students aware of the importance of this process.  They will do various magnet experiments to practice the scientific method.  They will be provided with tools to help them represent results and data and they will also be provided with opportunities to communicate these findings.  By this, they will come to better understand the concepts related to the forces of magnetism.  
The technology enhanced activities in this curriculum web will also provide opportunities for the students to interact with one another.  Because TV and Video games are such a part of students’ daily routine, they live in a World that lacks of communication and interaction skills.  As teachers, we need to create opportunities for them to learn these important skills.  This curriculum web will take advantage of the many opportunities it has to offer to practice these skills.  The students will also practice other related skills such as questioning, hypothesizing, classifying and interpreting data that need to be learned because they are fundamental to engaging in science.  The students will be given opportunities to participate in group activities and discuss of their findings to express their understanding of magnets.  In some cases, they will also use writing and other forms of representation such as drawings as ways to learn and communicate.  The curriculum web will also focus its efforts to develop cooperation and collaboration skills because our school’s grade 2 students lack the necessary tools to work effectively as a team.  These skills will be practiced by providing them with interactive group activities related to magnets.  The students will need to cooperate and collaborate in order complete the different tasks and activities integrated in this curriculum web.   

4.  Learners:  The science activities in this curriculum web are created for grade 3 students to experiment with magnets.

5.  Prerequisites:    The students

  • must have a basic knowledge of the scientific
    method
  • must have experience to navigate on the
    web
  • must have knowledge of Microsoft Word and its
    functions
  • must have cooperative and collaborative skills to work
    in a group
  • must be able to read at a grade 3 level

6.  Subject-Matter:  The curriculum web subject-matter is to introduce the grade 3 students to magnetic forces. 

Topics will include information on :

  • the definition of magnet
  • the types of magnets
  • magnet attractions
  • the polarity of magnets
  • the strength of magnets

Concept and skills developed will include how to :

  • collect data
  • represent data and results
  • use cooperation and collaboration skills
  • use communication skills
  • use computer skills using the Web

        
7.  Goals and Objectives:
This curriculum web was created to bring the students to learn about the concept of magnetic forces and discover a variety of ways these forces could be used.  The students will learn that all magnets have a North pole and a South pole and they will learn that like poles of magnets repel each other whereas opposite poles attract.  They will also learn about the strength of magnets.  The activities are also intended to help students develop computer skills by using the Web.

The students will

  • identify materials attracted by magnets
  • identify materials not attracted by magnets
  • investigate the strength of magnets
  • investigate the polarity of magnets, determine the orientation of its poles and demonstrate that opposites poles attract and like poles repel
  • make prediction, based on an observed pattern
  • follow a simple procedure which instructions are given one step at a time
  • communicate procedures and results 

8.  Instructional plan: The students should have basic knowledge of a computer before starting this curriculum web.  They should know how to navigate from one website to another and be able to use the keyboard to write words.  They should also be able to save and print their work.  The teacher will need to divide the class into groups of 2   students.  The teacher must also revise the collaboration and cooperation skills with her students before starting the curriculum web.
This curriculum web includes 3 activities: 
Activity 1:  Definition of Magnet
Activity 2:  What Objects Are Attracted To Magnets?  Activity 3:  Polarity and Strength of Magnets

9.  Materials: 

10.  Assessment and Evaluation

       Assessment 1:  Multiple Choices and True or False
       Assessment 2:  Project and Presentation

 

11.  Appendices