Colorful water ballons in blue plastic tub

This resource is a part of the Climate Science and Oceans Traveling Trunk

Balloon Experiment

Overview

Students will perform a class experiment to show how water (and the ocean) does an excellent job of absorbing excess heat from the atmosphere.

Activity Type:

Lesson

Target Grade Level:

K-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-12

Estimated Duration:

Varies

Topics:

Oceans

Possible Connections to NGSS

Performance Expectations

K-ESS3-3: Communicate solutions that will reduce the impact of humans on the land, water, air, and/or other living things in the local environment.

K-2-ETS1-1: Ask questions, make observations, and gather information about a situation people want to change to define a simple problem that can be solved through the development of a new or improved object or tool.

K-PS3-1: Make observations to determine the effect of sunlight on Earth’s surface.

2-ESS2-3: Obtain information to identify where water is found on Earth and that it can be solid or liquid.

3-LS4-4: Make a claim about the merit of a solution to a problem caused when the environmental changes and types of plants and animals that live there may change.

3-LS3-2: Use evidence to support the explanation that traits can be influenced by the environment.

4-PS3-2: Make observations to provide evidence that energy can be transferred from place to place by sound, light, heat, and electric currents.

4-ESS3-2: Generate and compare multiple solutions to reduce the impacts of natural Earth processes on humans.

5-ESS3-1: Combine and obtain information about ways individual communities use science ideas to protect Earth’s resources and environment.

MS-LS2-4: Construct an argument supported by empirical evidence that changes to physical or biological components of an ecosystem affect populations.

MS-ESS3-4: Construct an argument supported by evidence for how increases in human population and per-capita consumption of natural resources impact Earth’s systems.

MS-ESS3-5: Ask questions to clarify evidence of the factors that have caused the rise in global temperatures over the past century.

HS-ESS2-4: Use a model to describe how variations in the flow of energy into and out of Earth’s systems result in changes in climate.

HS-ESS3-1: Construct an explanation based on evidence for how the availability of natural resources, occurrence of natural hazards, and changes in climate have influenced human activity.