Melissa McGraw

ELED 3221-090
November 1, 2017

INDIRECT INSTRUCTION (STRUCTURED DISCOVERY) LESSON PLAN FORMAT

Solar Stills

Elementary Science
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Big Idea: Water Cycle

Grade Level: 5th

Rationale: I am teaching this content to give the students a better understanding of the water
cycle. This is important for students to learn because they are able to see that water is being
reused over and over in our environment. This connects to students lives because they have seen
it precipitate before, now they will be able to identify where the precipitation is coming from and
how it got there.

NC Essential Standard(s): 5.P.2.1 Explain how the suns energy impacts the processes of the
water cycle (including, evaporation, transpiration, condensation, precipitation and runoff).

Next Generation Science Standard(s): 2-PS1-1: Plan and conduct an investigation to describe
and classify different kinds of materials by their observable properties.

Instructional Objective: Students will be able to conduct an experiment with solar stills.
Students will state observations and make inferences with a partner. Students are expected to
earn 4 out of 5 points.

Prerequisite knowledge and skills: The students should be familiar with the water cycle. The
teacher needs to know the steps of the water cycle and the suns impact on each step.

Materials/Resources: Small clear plastic cups, soil, water, plastic wrap, rubber bands, marker,
sun, science notebooks, pencils, YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWb4KlM2vts

Source of your lesson: Clinical Teacher.

Estimated Time: Over a course of two days (experiment), the overall entire lesson should take
about 45 minutes.

Accommodation for Special Needs/different learning styles: For students who need help
making inferences, drawing pictures, and writing observations can ask their partner for help.
These students can also get longer time to complete their work if necessary. For ESL students, I
will find a video that is in their language or a video with subtitles.

Safety considerations: I will call up the partners one group at a time to make sure the proper
amount of soil and water is going in each cup. I will carry all the cups outside, so nobody drops
them and to make sure they are getting the proper amount of sunlight.
Melissa McGraw
ELED 3221-090
November 1, 2017
______________________________________________________________________________

Content and Strategies (Procedure)

In your procedure, be sure to include all of the following 5 Es. Your procedure should be
detailed enough for a colleague to follow. Additionally, I expect you to include possible
questions and anticipated student responses to your questions for each section.

Engage: 3 minutes
Write Solar Still on the board. Tell students to write this in their notebooks. Ask students:
Can someone tell me what they think a solar still is? (The word solar deals with the sun so it
must be something involving the sun, involving a cup that we put foil over to see if the sun heats
it up) Teacher will write all students answers on the board. Get answers from five students.

Explore: 20-30 minutes

Today we are going to find out what solar stills are because we are going to make them! You
guys are going to get with a partner and get a clear plastic cup. Then one of you is going to fill
the cup about half way with soil. The other partner is going to put some water in the cup to
saturate the soil. I will help you with this so I will tell you when you have enough water. Then
we are going to put plastic wrap over the cup with a rubber band to keep the plastic wrap on the
cup tightly. We will be putting these cups outside in the sun and we will check on them
tomorrow around this same time to take some notes on what we see. Each partner group will be
assigned a letter. That letter is going to go on the bottom of your cup, make sure to write this
letter in your science notebook so you dont forget it. Are there any questions before I let you go
find your partners?
(I think I know whats going to happen!) Okay! Well write it down in your science notebook and
we will check tomorrow to see if you were right.
(Why are we using plastic wrap?) We are using plastic wrap to make sure all the water stays in
the cup and cant escape.
(What if we put too much water in?) Well, everyones stills are going to look a little different
because not everyone is going to have the same exact amount of soil and water so we will check
out the stills tomorrow and compare the stills to see whats different about them.
Teacher will call partner groups one by one to separate table to create stills.
Students at their desks waiting to be called are writing down their hypothesis in their notebooks.
When teacher is done helping with the making of the stills, ask the students who types of
hypotheses they made about what they think is going to happen and why.
Tell students to put away their notebooks and we will continue this tomorrow.
Take the solar stills outside whenever you can.

*Next Day*
Explanation: 5 minutes
Bring in solar stills from outside, give partner groups their stills back. Tell the students to write
down what they see and inferences they made.
Who can raise their hand and tell me what they observe? (water droplets on the plastic wrap, the
soil looks solid, the soil looks moist)
What inferences did you guys make? (the sun heated up the water that was in the soil and it
forced the water to evaporate but the water had no where to go so it stuck to the plastic wrap)
What do you think would happen if there were a lot more droplets of water on the plastic wrap?
(the water would have to fall back to the soil)
What would happen if the plastic wrap wasnt there? (the water would evaporate into the sky)

Elaborate: 5 minutes
Do you guys think you know what we created with these solar stills? (the water cycle) Can
someone tell me the parts of the water cycle? (the sun heats up the ground that has water in it, the
water evaporates into the sky, the water condenses in the cloud and turns into water vapor, and
the water precipitates when the clouds are full)
So this shows how important the sun is to our environment right? (yes)
Show students video to review the water cycle one more time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWb4KlM2vts

Evaluate: I will walk around the room and have a checklist to assess the students.
Checklist:
What you think solar still is (engage)
Hypothesis
Drawing of the still on day 2
Written inferences
Participation in experiment

This is a formal assessment because it will be used for a grade. This is a summative assessment
because students are expected to earn a certain amount of points to show mastery.

Closure: 2 minutes
Who can tell me what solar stills are? (they help us see how the water cycle works)
Who can tell me the parts of the water cycle? (evaporation, condensation, and precipitation)
Good job, so we put soil in a cup and added water, and sealed the cups with plastic wrap and a
rubber band and let the cups sit in the sun for 24 hours. We noticed the plastic wrap had water
droplets on it from the sun heating up the soil and evaporating the water. This showed us how the
sun is really important to our environment. Next week we will learning about convection,
conduction, and radiation which is about the different ways heat can be transferred.