





Reading Your Lesson Plans
An assessment activity is an activity that makes students’ thinking visible. Does your
assessment give every student the opportunity to show you what s/he has learned?
The assessment activity should assess the specific aims. It should give every student the
chance to show how much of your aims have been learned from your lesson by each
student.
Think of the “instructional activities” as “learning activities.” “Learning activities” are
activities undertaken by the students designed to support their mastery of the material in
your lesson.
So: the aims, learning activities, and assessment activities must be tightly coordinated.
The rationale, too, should be specific and tightly tied to the lesson. Also, the diction
teacher education students use most often in rationales is “students need to know.” Ask
yourself, Why? And not just because it’s on the test.
Keep homework simple, specific, and tightly tied to the lesson. Except in rare
circumstances, initial learning is not the purpose of homework. Homework should be
assigned only to review or advance classroom learning. Always check and grade
homework. In regard to homework, less is better than more.
Objective [based on district curriculum]
 Anticipatory Set: Background Information to motivate students
 NJ CCCS Standard # and Cumulative Progress Indicator #
 Time Frame
 Groups of Students
 Activity description:
 Resources: text, etc
 Guided Practice: Classwork
 Independent Practice: Homework
 Closure/Evaluation
 Teacher Reflection
http://www.ntuaft.com/njcccs/Webpage/Main%20CCCS%20Page.htm
On-line version of the NJ CCCS has sample teaching activities embedded via hyperlink -- see
science standards and, under social studies, see the geology standards
http://www.citybloom.org/index.htm
The Nature Conservancy, in Newark, Prince St. Educational center -- takes school groups
http://www.project2061.org/publications/articles/assessment/IMD.htm#all
Project 2061
http://www.project2061.org/
Resources aligned to content standards
http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/nses/
National Science Education Standards
http://www.greece.k12.ny.us/instruction/ela/6-12/BackwardDesign/Overview.htm
Backward Design and Concept mapping
Lesson Plan Template
Instructor’s Name: Karina Aliaga
Course Title: Chemistry Class
Unit: Gas Laws
Topic: Absolute Zero
Grade Level: High School
Rationale:
It is important for students to understand that pressure, volume and temperature are interrelated.
While these relationships provide a large scale picture of a system, at a fundamental level they
arise from properties of different states of matter and the oscillations within their atoms and
molecules.
NJ State Standards: 5.2.12.C.1
Instructional Goal(s):
The students will be able to identify the relationship between temperature and pressure. In
addition, they will be able to understand the main ideas behind absolute zero.
Performance Objective:
The students will learn about Absolute Zero and Gay-Lussac’s Law. They will gain a greater
understanding of the behavior of atoms and molecules as well as the relationship between
pressure and temperature, will perform an experiment.
Lesson Content:
The lesson to be taught is about Absolute Zero. The students will learn what absolute zero is and
its history. In addition, they will learn about Gay-Lussac’s Law and how to find absolute zero.
Finally, they will learn how to implement their knowledge and predict a value for absolute zero
experimentally. Also, they will learn about the introduction of a new state of matter called BoseEinstein Condensate and how it can be used in the future.
Time frame for the Lesson:
Time Frame of Activity
1st Period :
1st Period:
2nd Period
Activity to be performed
Introduction to Gay-Lussac’s Law
Learning about Absolute Zero and its interesting facts
Perform Experiment and analyze results
Note: All times are approximate, and should be revised based upon student progress)
Instructional procedures:
a. Focusing event – Students will be motivated to learn about absolute zero by asking them
questions such as:
1. What is the coldest temperature you have experienced?
2. How low can the temperature possible get?
b. Bridge/ Connections – Students will be able to relate their understanding of the
interactions between molecules to absolute zero.
c. Teaching procedures –A power-point presentation will be presented which will discuss
the history attempts to reach absolute zero. In addition, the students will perform an
experiment or the teacher will demonstrate with the student’s input and interaction.
d. Formative check –Students will be asked targeted questions to ascertain their
understanding of the concepts such as:
1. In Gay-Lussac’s law, what are the two factors that are kept constant?
2. What kind of relationship would you expect between gas pressure and
temperature?
3. What should happen to pressure if the temperature (Kelvin) is doubled?
e. Student participation- As a demonstration of the experiment, the teacher can allow the
students to participate by permitting them to bring materials or helping when using the
Logger Pro program.
f. Interdisciplinary connections – The experiment and lesson demonstrates the
interactions between math and understanding of the physical properties of matter.
g. Closure- Students will learn about possible usages of getting close to absolute zero such
as:
1. Bose-Einstein Condensate is achieved.
2. Bose-Einstein Condensate could be used to slow down light.
3. Ultra cold atoms could be used to store information in the future.
Materials and Aids:
Logger Pro software. Vernier temperature and pressure probes, beakers and water at various
temperatures.