This is the teacher guide for this lesson. A student-focused guide to assist learners as they perform the activity is available.
Teacher Guide
Plasma in Augmented Reality
Merge Cube Activities
What is plasma? What are some examples and applications of plasma?
- Pencil
- Smartphone
- Merge Cube
- MARVLS: Plasma App: To install: scan QR code below and follow prompts.
In this activity, students will use the Merge Cube and augmented reality to explore states of substances when thermal energy is added/removed, examples of natural phenomena and man made instruments utilizing plasma, and to better understand how nuclear fusion creates energy. By completing small activities using augmented reality and answering questions, students will be able to explore all of these phenomena.
- Total time60 minutes (can be made longer or shorter depending on how many explorations you complete)
- Education levelGrades 6 - 10
- Content AreaPlasma Science, states of matter
- Educational topicFusion, gravity, energy generation, magnetism
In these activities, we will use augmented reality to take a closer look at plasma, and some of the associated examples and applications.
We often think of the other three states of matter, solids, liquids, and gasses, but plasma, the fourth state of matter, is an electrified gas that exists abundantly in our universe. Plasma is created when extra energy is added to gas, which is often done when gasses are heated to high temperatures. When the atoms in a gas are heated to these temperatures, they begin moving at fast speeds and collide into one another, causing their electrons to detach. This produces atoms with a net charge, called an ion. Due to these ions and other free charged particles, plasma responds very strongly to electromagnetic fields, which are the physical fields produced by an electrically charged object. These fields affect the behavior of other objects that are located within the field.
There are many examples and applications of plasma that can be seen in our everyday life. You can learn more about places plasmas are found -both naturally and man-made- in PhysicsQuest 2024: Plasma - a mysterious matter Activity 1: Plasma Phenomenon. For example, the Sun is made of plasma that is heated by nuclear fusion reactions. Other examples of plasma can be found on a much smaller scale such as a Plasma Ball that students themselves might have seen at a science museum, or at a store. A third example is in a nuclear fusion reactor, called a Tokamak, which aims to create energy for our world. All of these, and more will be explored in this activity.
By studying plasma and some of its applications, scientists can continue to make technological advancements using its particular characteristics.
Teacher Tips:
- Suggested STEP UP Everyday Actions to incorporate into activity
- When pairing students, try to have male/female partners and invite female students to share their ideas first
- As you put students into groups, consider having female or minority students take the leadership role.
- Take note of female participation. If they seem to be taking direction and following along, elevate their voice by asking them a question about their experiment.
- Consider using white boards so students have time to work through their ideas and brainstorms before saying them out loud.
- As students experiment, roam around the room to listen in on discussion and notice experiment techniques. If needed, stop the class and call over to a certain group that has hit on an important concept.
- Consider culturally responsive tools and strategies and/or open ended reflection questions to help push student thinking, have students track their thinking during the activity, connect to their lives, and create opportunities to develop STEM identity.
- Allow the work of physicists to come alive by signing up for a virtual visit from a working physicist using APS’s Physicist To-Go program. You can request a plasma scientist to talk about the concepts students learned in this activity!
Key terms
In this activity, students will go on an exciting journey to explore the amazing world of plasma and its different uses and cool features. Plasma is the fourth state of matter and is a special kind of electrified gas found everywhere in the universe. Even though plasma is very common, people often forget about it. In this activity, students will check out different plasma phenomena and sort them by temperature and density. They will also look for patterns in this state of matter.
- Plasma:: A state of matter in which particles are ionized and exist as charged ions and electrons. Plasma is the medium in which nuclear fusion occurs.
- Matter: : anything that has weight and takes up space
- Atom: : the basic unit of a chemical element
- Proton: : A positively charged subatomic particle, located at the center of an atom.
- Electron: : a negatively charged subatomic particle, orbits the nucleus extremely fast.
- Electromagnets: : magnets powered using electricity. They are made by wrapping wire around metal and passing an electric current through the wire, creating a magnetic field. When the electricity stops, the magnetism goes away.
- - Toroidal: : Type of electromagnet, donut-shaped, circular magnetic field within the ring.
- - Poloidal: : Type of electromagnet, magnetic field lines run along the meridian of a torus.
- - Solenoid: : Type of electromagnet, cylindrical shape, uniform magnetic field inside the coil.
- Neutron: : a subatomic particle with no charge, located at the center of an atom.
- Solar Wind: : A continual stream of protons and electrons from the sun’s outermost atmosphere.
- Plasma Ball: : a glass globe filled with special gasses with a metal sphere in the middle that creates an electric field.
- Static Electricity: : an imbalance between negative and positive charges that builds up on the surface of an object.
- Isotope: : An atom of the same element that has equal number of protons but different number of neutrons
Objectives
*Students will use augmented reality to explore the different phases of matter, and use it to predict the state of a substance when thermal energy is or removed.
*It is important to understand that student goals may be different and unique from the lesson goals. We recommend leaving room for students to set their own goals for each activity. Have students share their questions or objectives using an Essential Question board or something similar.
Before the experiment
We recommend doing this lesson after Activity 1: Plasma Phenomenon
Modify, change, reformat, upload the student guide provided into the format or platform you like to use with your students (e.g. google suite, learning management software, word document, etc.
Ask & discuss:
What’s the matter
Define the following words and take notes on their worksheet.
- Matter
- Atom
Phases of Matter: Ask students to give an additional example item related to each phase of matter.
When have we seen changes in phases of matter?:
- Ask students to think of a time when they have seen a change in a phase of matter
- Ask students what was added or taken away from the matter to initiate the change.
Turn & talk:
- Pair students up
- Give them a minute to think quietly
- Give students 2 minutes to discuss their thinking
- Have students record their answers or share out to the whole group
Have students record their answers in their student guide
Setting up
Download and open the MARVLS Plasma app onto a smartphone
Print or upload student guides to your classroom’s platform so students can access and fill out during the explorations.
During the experiment
Collecting data
The Fourth State of Matter
Open the MARVLS app and navigate to “What is Plasma'' and “Phases of Matter.”
- Click the view in AR button and point your phone’s camera toward the merge cube.
- Have students turn the merge cube until they see the AR module pop up.
- Have students answer the questions and create their own visualizations on page 2 of The Fourth Phase of Matter PDF.
On page 3 of the student guide, students can now read about the parts of an atom and practice calculating charges.
Open the MARVLS app and navigate to “What is Plasma'' and “Separating Charges.”
- Click the view in AR button and point your phone’s camera toward the merge cube.
- Have students turn the merge cube until they see the AR module pop up.
- Ask students to complete the associated questions on their student guide,
Open the MARVLS app and navigate to “Fields and Forces'' and “E Field.”
- Click the view in AR button and point your phone’s camera toward the merge cube.
- Have students turn the merge cube until they see the AR module pop up.
- Ask students to complete the associated questions on their student guide.
Open the MARVLS app and navigate to “What is Plasma'' and “Phases of Matter”.
- Click the view in AR button and point your phone’s camera toward the merge cube.
- Have students turn the merge cube until they see the AR module pop up.
- Ask students to complete the associated questions on their student guide.
Ask students to complete the final thoughts questions on their student guides.
Plasma Examples
Open the app and select “Plasma Examples” and “Fiery Sun.”
- Click the red camera button on the bottom of the screen and point your camera toward the Merge Cube.
- Press and toggle the E and B field buttons.
- Students can describe each field of the Sun on page 1 of their student guides.
Ask students to complete the labeling and sketching of the Earth’s magnetic field on the top of page 2.
Open the app and navigate to “Fields and Forces” and “Magnetic Field.”
- Students can use this to help them with their sketches.
Open the app and navigate to “Plasma Examples” and “Aurora Borealis.”
- Click the red camera button and point your phone’s camera toward the Merge Cube.
- Press the Small Solar Flare and Large Solar Flare buttons
- Gave students complete the associated questions on page 3 of their student guide.
Have students complete the Final Thoughts questions on page 3 of their student guide.
Open the app and navigate to “Plasma Examples” and “Plasma Ball.”
- Click the red camera button and point your phone’s camera toward the Merge Cube.
- Students can complete the chart on page 4 of their student guide.
Open the app and navigate to “Plasma Examples” and “Van De Graaff Generator.”
- Click the red camera button and point your phone toward the merge cube.
- Press charge and discharge button and have students sketch the field each created on their student guide.
Have students complete the Final Thoughts questions on page 6 of their student guide.
The Tokamak
Open the app and choose “Tokamak” and “Tokamak.”
- Click the view in AR button and point your phone’s camera at the Merge Cube.
- Have students turn the merge cube until they see the AR module pop up.
- Ask students to complete the associated questions on their student guide.
Ask students to read the information about Ionization of Hydrogen on page 2 of their student guides.
Open the app and navigate to “Nuclear Fission” and “Hydrogen Isotopes.”
- Click the view in AR button and point your phone’s camera at the Merge Cube.
- Have students turn the merge cube until they see the AR module pop up.
- Students can fill in the boxes on the bottom of page 2 of their student guides.
Open the app and navigate to “Nuclear FIssion” and “Electrostatic force.”
- Students can use this to help them answer the questions on the top of page 3 of their student guide.
Open the app and navigate to “Nuclear Fission” and “Overcoming Electrostatic forces”
- Click the view in AR button and point your phone’s camera at the Merge Cube.
- Students can complete the associated questions.
Open the app and navigate to “Nuclear Fission” and “Nuclear Fission Reaction.”
- Click the view in AR button and point the camera at the Merge Cube.
- Students can fill in the associated part of their student guide,
Navigate back to Tokamak (Open the app → Tokamak → Tokamak).
- Students can predict how they think scientists add heat or energy to the plasma in the tokamak.
Open the app and navigate to “Tokamak” and “External energy systems.”
- Students can make observations and fill in the chart on page 6 of their student guide.
Open the app and navigate to “Tokamal” and “Solenoid” or “Toroid.”
- Students can use these models to see the magnetic field when current flows through these coils.
Ask students to complete the Final Thoughts question on page 6 of their student guide.
Conclusion
For the three Merge Cube activities, students can complete the “Final Thoughts” section of their student guide to reflect on what they learned.
Introduce the Plasma Career Matching Tool - This tool can be used for any level. It matches students to relevant fusion energy/plasma scientists’ profiles based on their interests and values. They can then research, create their own profiles, and discuss with the class. Encourage your students to take this interactive Career Matching Survey to see what fusion energy/plasma science careers fit them best.
Real world connections
- Read about some of the female scientists who “helped make history at Princeton Plasma Physics Lab”
- Have students select one scientist and write a brief biography of her life and work.
Suggestions for drawing, illustrating, presenting content in creative ways
- Check out this video about how welders use Plasma to cut metal and create art using Plasma Cutting. How Does a Plasma Cutter Work?
- Have students brainstorm how they would use a plasma cutter to create their own project or art piece. Students should draw a diagram of their creation, identifying the materials used for each piece and outlining plans for its construction.
- Some Plasma Art Examples: https://www.hypertherm.com/en-US/resources/spark-the-blog/plasma-cutter-art-and-artists/
Engineering and design challenges connected to the content
- PPPL IPPEX Virtual Tokamak: Students can complete the Virtual Tokamak activity to practice what they learned about fusion reactors to help produce power without damaging the machine (simulation).
**Real world situations/connections can be used as is, or changed to better fit a student’s own community and cultural context.
Physicist-To-Go
Sign up for Physicists To-Go to have a scientist talk to your students.
STEP UP Women in Physics lesson
STEP UP Women in Physics lesson: introduces the underrepresentation of women in physics and the role of implicit bias and cultural stereotypes. Helps students examine the conditions for women in physics and discuss gender issues, gendered professions, and personal experience to neutralize the effect of stereotypes and bias.
- MS-PS1-1Develop models to describe the atomic composition of simple molecules and extended structures.
- MS-PS1-4Develop a model that predicts and describes changes in particle motion, temperature, and state of a pure substance when thermal energy is added or removed.
- MS-PS1-4The changes of state that occur with variations in temperature or pressure can be described and predicted using these models of matter.
- Science and Engineering Practices (SEPs)Developing and Using Models ▪ Analyzing and Interpreting Data ▪ Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions ▪ Obtaining, Evaluating, and Communicating Information
- Cross Cutting Concepts (CCCs)Cause and Effect Energy and Matter Scale, Proportionality, and Quantity Systems and System Models Stability and Change
Credits
Created by Dr. Michele McColgan, Siena College along with Nicole Schrode, MEd, and Claudia Fracchiolla, PhD, of APS Public Engagement
Reviewed by Kimberly Becker, Avery Jackson, Tiffany O’Dell, Joel Richardson, Allison Scherrer
Extensions by Amanda Maeglin
PhysicsQuest © 2024 by American Physical Society is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0
License
- Attribution — You must give appropriate credit , provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made . You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
- NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes