Raise a Student Up With Air.
Materials
Bicycle tire pump
Football
Needle for inflating the football.
Grassy area where students might play, reasonably safe place to fall.
Procedure
Announce to students that you can lift up a student with air. Ask them if they believe you.
Take the class out to a grassy area. Show the students how a person uses a pump to push air inside the football and inflate it fully (about 13 lbs. ). Take the needle out of the pump hose. Put the needle in the ball, cover the hole to stop the air and have the students line up. They go by in a line for a turn where you let the air out on their cheek or hands so that they feel it. Deflate the ball completely.
Attach the needle into the pump hose again. Lay the football on the ground and put the needle end in the ball. ( may need a little moisture, ) Pick one lucky student to stand on the ball. Tell the student to keep their balance, their feet can go anywhere on the ball but don’t step on the needle.
Two other students stand on the sides and hold on to the first student by the arms to help them stay on top of the ball.
Pump up the ball and the student goes up too.
What part of a huge truck on the highway is actually touching the ground?
What’s inside the tires?
The whole truck is sitting on tires full of air?
This is called air pressure. We can’t see air but we can see what it does. It has force and in a storm it can create a great deal of damage. If you ask students what they know about destruction during storms they will have a great deal to say. Copy single words they use as a list they can use to generate sentences. Guide their writing with a stem sentence about air pressure:
Air pressure can move heavy objects.
When students finish they read what they wrote in the journal. They find three others in the class. Draw a picture of what we did in the journal.