As a high school or undergraduate Physics teacher, you can use this set of computer-based tools to help you in teaching Planck’s Law, the StefanBoltzmann Law, and Blackbody Radiation.
This lesson plan allows students to visualize the emission spectra associated with particular temperatures, to understand how Planck’s Law can be used to plot blackbody curves of objects with different temperatures, and to learn the relationship between temperature and peak wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum. The activity also introduces the topic of planetary temperatures of objects in the solar system and shows the
greenhouse effect of Earth’s atmosphere
Thus, the use of this toolkit allows you to integrate the teaching of a climate science topic with a core topic in Physics.
The tools in this lesson plan will enable students to:
Here is a step-by-step guide to using this lesson plan in the classroom/laboratory. We have suggested these steps as a possible plan of action. You may customize the lesson plan according to your preferences and requirements.
Visualization and associated activity (~45min)
Classroom/Laboratoryactivity (60 – 90 min)
Suggested questions/assignments for learning evaluation
Use this lesson plan to help your students find answers to:
| 1 | Reading | A reading, “Energy Balance and Planetary Temperatures”, from the American Chemical Society (ACS)
This can be accessed here. |
| 2 | Reading | A reading, “A Single-Layer Atmosphere Model, How Atmospheric Warming Works”, from the American Chemical Society (ACS):
This can be accessed here . |
| 3 | Micro-lecture (video) | A micro-lecture (video), “Our First Climate Model Naked Planet”, from David Archer, the University of Chicago:
This can be accessed here. |
| 4 | Visualization | A visualization tool, “Planetary Energy Balance”, from UCAR Center for Science Education:
This can be accessed here. |
| 1 | Visualization, “Blackbody Spectrum”AND Associated Activity, “Exploring Planck’s Law” | PhET Interactive Simulations, the University of Colorado Boulder |
| 2 | Classroom/Laboratory Activity, “The Layer Model Approximation to the Greenhouse Effect” | David Archer, the University of Chicago Provided by Academia |
| 3 | Additional Resources |
Here is a step-by-step guide to using this lesson plan in the classroom/laboratory. We have suggested these steps as a possible plan of action. You may customize the lesson plan according to your preferences and requirements.
1.Introduce the topic
Visualization and associated activity (~45min) 2. Conduct an activity using an interactive visualization tool
Classroom/Laboratoryactivity (60 – 90 min) 3. Conduct a classroom/laboratory activity
Suggested questions/assignments for learning evaluation 4.Questions/Assignments
Use the tools and the concepts learned so far to discuss and determine answers to the following questions:
Use this lesson plan to help your students find answers to:
| 1 | Reading | A reading, “Energy Balance and Planetary Temperatures”, from the American Chemical Society (ACS)
This can be accessed here. |
| 2 | Reading | A reading, “A Single-Layer Atmosphere Model, How Atmospheric Warming Works”, from the American Chemical Society (ACS):
This can be accessed here . |
| 3 | Micro-lecture (video) | A micro-lecture (video), “Our First Climate Model Naked Planet”, from David Archer, the University of Chicago:
This can be accessed here. |
| 4 | Micro-lecture (video) | A micro-lecture (video), “Energy Balance with a Greenhouse Atmosphere”, from David Archer, the University of Chicago:
This can be accessed here. |
| 5 | Visualization | A visualization tool, “Planetary Energy Balance”, from UCAR Center for Science Education:
This can be accessed here. |
| 1 | Visualization, “Blackbody Spectrum”AND Associated Activity, “Exploring Planck’s Law” | PhET Interactive Simulations, the University of Colorado Boulder National Science Teaching Association |
| 2 | Classroom/Laboratory Activity, “The Layer Model Approximation to the Greenhouse Effect” | National Science Teaching AssociationDavid Archer, the University of Chicago |
| 3 | Additional Resources | American Chemical Society; David Archer, the University of Chicago; |
