Alessio Bernardelli
Hi, have I told you I work for NGfL Cymru? Probably a thousand times 😉
In the video below I show a great animation on convection currents in a room heated by a radiator that you can find on our website here. However, I don’t just give a tour of the animation, but I show how you can use it to encourage your students to talk about Physics in a creative way. It is a role play where you introduce the animation as a talk show of the life of the “Particles” family, which is your class. Well, the rest is in the video and I don’t want to spoil it for you, but I believe this approach is an interesting way to develop Communication and Literacy skills in your pupils in a fun way!
As always, I really value your feedback, so spend 10 seconds to leave a comment, please!
Alessio's Blog 
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An impressive resource on a topic that is hard to teach to pupils who find it difficult to visualise particle behaviour.
And a nice way to find out about the NgfL Cymru resources. Had a quick look at a couple of other animations – will be back to try some in my classroom/lab too.
Nice one alessio
Thanks! Really appreciate your positive comments. Hope you’ll find other NGfL Cymru resources useful, but keep looking, or even better subscribe to the website, as we are about to add quite a lot more in Science!
Alessio.
Hi Alessio,
First time I’ve managed to look at some of your stuff – like this convection ‘movie-visualiser’…helps me more by having the graphic, as I teach ‘hot things (gas, liquid) rise because the particles get more energy & so move further away from each other, so volume occupied gets bigger but no. particles/mass stays same, so density (mass/vol) gets smaller, so the ‘cube’ has lower density & so rises…..etc. Could you say something llike “this cube of air (& show it in 3-d, as a cube) contains (say) 10 particles (show just 10, or 5, eg different cpolours so that kids can count/see constant number….then no particles (=mass) remains constatnt, but vol occupied by these 10 particles increases/decreases, so density decreases/increases, so ‘cube’ rises/falls….Sounds more complicated than your graphic could explain it, so….nice one! (as we know, so many kids think that as you heat things they expand, so the particles expand…
Cheers!
Terry
Thanks Terry,
First of all I cannot take the credit for the animation, which was created by Dr Iestyn Jones from eChalk a few years ago. I think making a 3D cube would be a really nice addition, but my feeling is that it would have added too many variables to make it as smooth as it is. I agree it would look more realistic, but I think it still helps quite a bit in visualizing the concept, as you said! My part in this resource was just very recently (in fact today) to promote it again and give it a bit of a twist, which I hope will be of some use. My kids like doing that kind of thing (the talk show bit) and so I think others would.
Will you be at the ASE Conference?
OK, thanks for comments; agreed, most kids like some sort of ‘drama-based’ involvement in science – acting at being particles (eg in a solid metal rod as one end is heated…not literally, of course…well, may be a hair drier, but not a Bunsen..!).
Yes, I’m at ASE – doing 2 sessions too; looks to be even busier than last year!
Cheers!
Terry
Hi Alessio,
Nice animation, but be careful with the words, it almost sounded like you said the particles were expanding at one point!
I really like the talk show idea – absolutely excellent. I’ll use that first chance I get.
Thanks Gary,
I know exactly what you mean and I agree! I didn’t mean that the particles expand, but the air does. I know it sounds different in the video, but I had only 5 min and it had to be taken all in one go, so where I wanted to say “… and the air expands…” I just said “expand”. It was the best take and time running out, so I decided to keep it! Hope it’s not too confusing!
Alessio