An energy ladder
Classroom Activity
for 11-14
What the Activity is for
The purpose of this activity is to enable pupils to build up some idea of the size of the joule unit of energy.
What to Prepare
- a blank copy of the ladder, A3 or larger
What Happens During this Activity
Place the ladder on the wall, with a few key values on it, then populate it with energies to give a feeling for the size of the joule and the range of energies connected with human activity. You might like to draw attention to the rather special times scale
up the side where each interval represents a factor of 10 in the quantity of energy.
You might direct the pupils to provide the examples, perhaps researched for homework. If you do this the pupils will need help converting values from calories (1 kilocalorie (kcal) is 4.2 kilojoule) or kilowatt-hours (1 kilowatt hour is 3,600,000 joule).
