Lesson Idea | Preparing for the Weather

Daniel learned that strong storms can damage pet houses. Help him design a pet house that keeps animals safe even in storms.

Students Will:

- Build a model of a pet house designed to reduce the impact of a weather-related hazard.
- Make a claim about how and why their design reduces the impact of the hazard to keep a pet safe.
- Support the claim with evidence about the problems the hazard causes and reasons why the design addresses these problems.

Things You Will Need

One for every two students:
- LEGO® Education SPIKE™ Essential Set
- Device with the LEGO Education SPIKE App installed

Prepare

(Note: This lesson contains a Part A and a Part B. Both are important to access the full learning of the standard. If time is limited, review both parts to choose elements that meet your students’ needs.)

In this lesson, the key learning is in using a model to support a claim that their pet house design solves a specific problem. Students will design and build that pet house using the example images for inspiration. Encourage them to design and build their own idea for a pet house.

1. Science Background - Preparing for the Weather: Solutions to weather-related structural hazards consider the different ways weather creates hazards:
- Wind speed and direction, as well as shape, all affect a structure’s stability. Secure connections help structures withstand high winds, as does placing the structure behind something to redirect the wind (e.g., a row of trees).
- Accumulated snow is very heavy and can be unevenly distributed, which can cause roof collapse. Extra bracing adds strength; slanting allows snow to slide off.
- Flood damage can be reduced by elevating structures, using materials that can get wet, and sloping the land to drain the water away.
- Thunderstorms may contain lightning, which can damage structures directly or strike trees that then fall on the structure.

2. Build Prior Knowledge - Preparing for the Weather: Using your core science materials, share information, images, and definitions.
- Weather-related hazards include damage from high winds, flooding, lightning, or snow.
- Where and how buildings are constructed and placed on the land can reduce the impact of storm damage.
- A claim answers a question about a problem and is supported by an argument that uses evidence and reasoning to say why a solution will respond to the problem. Evidence may include reasons, facts, and logical cause-effect relationships (heavy rains cause flooding; lightning causes fires).
- Key vocabulary: hazard, claim, evidence

3. Building and Programming Experience: Review the suggestions in the Unit Plan. For this lesson, you may also want to
- Reinforce with the Gyro Sensor and Light tutorials in the SPIKE App Start menu.
- Use the Sensor, Sound, and Light Blocks sections of the Help>Word Blocks menu in the SPIKE app to provide more support on using and programming the Gyro Sensor, Light Matrix, and sound options in different ways to simulate storm conditions.
- Use the Hovering Helicopter lesson to build experience using the tilt sensor.

Part A (45 minutes)

Engage

(Whole class, 10 minutes)

Introduce the story’s main character(s) and the first challenge: Daniel learned that strong storms can damage pet houses. Help him design a pet house that keeps animals safe in storms.

Think—Facilitate a brief discussion about the lesson topic(s), using the story picture if you wish.

1. What are some hazards that weather like storms can cause? (Floods, heavy snow, high winds, lightning, and tornadoes)
2. How do people design buildings to reduce these hazards? (Possible answers include putting structures on stilts above flood waters using materials that can stay wet, building roofs strong enough to hold heavy snow and slanting them so the snow slides off, avoiding large flat surfaces that can get blown over, using plants to deflect the wind, adding lightning rods, and building storm cellars for tornadoes.)
3. Choose one kind of storm hazard to design and build a model pet house for.

Distribute a SPIKE™ Essential Set and a device to each group.

For further information, please visit LEGO® Education website.