This 3-page 5th grade check starts with a table of six examples, from touching a hot mug to feeling heat from a fire. Students tick conduction, convection or radiation for each. Page 2 has five multiple choice questions with three options each, then one short answer about why pots often have plastic handles, beside a photo of a pot on a gas burner. The answer key shows the ticked table, the five letters and a model written answer.
4-PS3-2
“Make observations to provide evidence that energy can be transferred from place to place by sound, light, heat, and electric currents.”
The table and the five questions check that students can tell conduction, convection and radiation apart, and the short answer applies conduction to a pot handle.
Six examples to mark in a three-column table, including warm air rising, getting a sunburn, a radiator warming a room by moving air and a frying pan on a burner.
Five questions on the direction heat moves, objects that touch, travel through empty space, the materials convection works through and a metal spoon in hot soup.
One question on plastic pot handles, with three lines to write on.
The ticked table, letters for the five questions and a model answer about plastic as an insulator.
End of unit
Run it as a 15-minute check after the sorting and diagram sheets. The table shows quickly who still mixes up convection with radiation.
Radiator item
Item 4 says the radiator warms the room by moving air. Point out that the clue is in the words moving air.
Plastic handle
Use the short answer as a one-sentence exit slip. A full answer says plastic slows conduction from the hot pot to the handle.
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