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Recommended for: Grades 6-8

Lesson Plan: The Biomass Balancing Act

Overview

Students will work cooperatively to research biomass using the International Energy Agency’s website. They will use evidence from the web search to assess biomass energy potential in Pennsylvania as part of a classroom “Alternative Energy Commission.” After preparing and sharing a fact sheet for biomass energy, students will witness a demonstration illustrating the presence of carbon dioxide and design an experiment to investigate carbon neutrality.

Content Objectives

Students will know that

  • Biomass is all plant and animal material on the earth’s surface.
  • Biomass energy is a form of stored solar energy.
  • Biomass can be used for heating, power (electricity) generation or transportation.
  • The process of sustainably producing energy with biomass is carbon neutral.

Process Objectives

Students will be able to

  • Identify biomass resources
  • Describe how biomass is a form of stored solar energy
  • Explain how a particular biomass resource can be used to produce heat or electricity or contribute to transportation resource needs.
  • Design an experiment to demonstrate how it can be said that sustainable biomass energy production is carbon neutral.

Grade Level: 6-8

Suggested Time

Three to four (3-4) 50-minute class periods.

Multimedia Resources

Materials

  • One Computer with internet access for each student group
  • Teacher computer (if presenting video in a large group)
  • Projection equipment (if presenting video in a large group)
  • One

    Biomass Student Handout PDF Document

    per group
  • Carbon Cycle lecture materials (found in the

    Biomass Teacher Notes PDF Document

    )

The Lesson

Part I: Part 1: Pennsylvania Biomass Technology

1. Share the

PA Energy Biomass Movie QuickTime Video

movie (Practitioners may elect to project the movie for the entire class or allow students to view from the internet in small groups). [If pressed for time with this content, the video may be shown as an introduction to Part 2.]

2. Divide students into small groups [Note: It may be helpful to sort into seven groups since Part 2 works well with such an organization] and prompt them to help you formulate a working definition of biomass.

3. Debrief main points of video as a class and develop the concept of biomass from the offerings of small group work into a large concept map or visual.

4. Display the students’ definitions and concept maps/visuals in the classroom as a reference.

Part II: Part 2: IEA Web Investigation

5. To further investigate biomass as an energy resource, refer to International Energy Association’s Education Web Site. Break the class into seven (7) groups to explore the site’s subtopics (Group 1 may focus on “Definition,” Group 2, “Technologies,” etc.)

6. Present the IEA website and work through all or part of the guided tour and set groups off to work independently to complete their section of the Student Handout.

7. Bring groups back to a whole class setting to share findings and create a summary document or fact sheet for biomass and bioenergy.

Part III: Part 3: Designing an Experiment

8. Give a short lecture using the diagram of the Carbon Cycle from the page 3 of the

Biomass Teacher Notes PDF Document

.

9. Demonstrate an experimental set-up for identifying the presence of carbon dioxide modified from Activity 17 of Project Learn, “Where in the World is Carbon Dioxide?” found at University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR). (Demonstration procedure included on page 6 of the

Biomass Teacher Notes PDF Document

).

10. Allow students to work in pairs to select a particular type of biomass and brainstorm and/or design a short experiment to gather evidence about carbon neutrality and their biomass source.

Part IV: Extension

11. Take it the next step--implement a student-designed experiment (or combination of designs) to model a life scale investigation to quantify the emissions of various biomass resources. Using the full experiment sequence in Activity 17 of Project Learn is a fantastic model and can be found at: Project Learn Site.

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