Adding Heat to Materials Video

How Does Heat Affect Materials?

Science experiments involving heat are particularly tricky for primary school teachers! So how can we cover those heat-related concepts in the science curriculum without exposing our students to potential hazards?

Enter Teach Starter’s video series of science demonstrations on materials and their properties! Simply sign in to your Teach Starter account, project the video page, and hit play! This video resource is available to watch again and again with your Teach Starter subscription, so you can share it with multiple science classes.

In this two-minute video, your students will observe how different objects react when heat is applied to them. Some of the objects featured in the video include bread, water, chocolate, paper, water and metal.

As they watch the video, various multiple-choice questions will be presented on the screen for the students to answer. These include:

1. What happens when you add heat to toast?
2. Which one of the substances listed melts when heated?
3. Which one of the substances listed does not catch fire when heated?
4. Which one of the substances listed evaporates when heated?
5. What happens to metal when it is heated a lot?

We recommend that you pause the video after each question appears and discuss the possible answers as a class. You might even have the students talk in pairs or a small group before sharing their answers (and the scientific reasoning behind them!) with the rest of the class. 

By the end of the lesson, your class should be able to identify how a selection of everyday objects and materials react when heat energy is applied to them.

Activities to Accompany This Heat Energy Video

Are you looking for more ways to engage your students with heat energy and its effects on materials? Here are some follow-up activity suggestions from our teacher team: 

1. Sorting Activity – Provide pictures or samples of different substances such as metal, chocolate, water, plastic and wood. Ask students to sort them into two categories: those that are affected by gentle heat and those that are not. Encourage them to explain their reasoning for each classification.
2. Will It Burn? –  Have the students brainstorm a list of different food and drink items, e.g. chocolate, bread, an apple, some orange juice. Go through each item and discuss what might happen if each was placed in a frying pan on a medium heat.
3. Heat Sensory Investigation – Blindfold students and provide them with different objects to touch and describe. Have them determine which objects feel warm or cool to the touch. Relate this back to the type of material the object is made from.

More Properties of Materials Videos

This heat energy video is one of a series made by our experienced teacher team on the properties of materials. Here are some others you might want to peruse and use in your science lessons!