Georgia Standards

 

South Carolina Standards

 

Key Vocabulary

 

Materials

• A variety of music selections
• Music source and speakers
• Projection or printed cards showing dance terms in PART 1
• Cards printed with weather conditions; one card per small group

 

Instructional Design

Opening/Activating Strategy

• Show students one card at a time from a projection or a stack of cards printed with dance vocabulary words: high level, low level, sudden, steady, clockwise, counterclockwise (note that the terms fast/slow in PART 1 are not included in this list for an activating strategy).
• Ask students to execute the movement while you play music for 5-10 seconds. When the music stops, students will freeze.
• Change cards when the music stops and repeat this activity several times so that students become introduced to the different movements.
• All students should move at the same time to create a low-stakes activity. Variation in movement is encouraged so that students produce individualized movements rather than copying peers. This is a time for students to experiment with movement and individuality.

Work Session

PART 1

• Divide the class into small groups. Give each group a set of three cards that list conditions expected during a three-day period in the atmosphere over a given fictitious city. Each card should include conditions that do not completely describe the weather, such as:
  • CARD EXAMPLE 1 (discusses pressure systems)
    • Day 1: Winds 5 MPH, sunny skies; temperatures are 80-90 degrees.
    • Day 2: Low pressure passes over the city at 12 p.m. and 12:30 p.m.
    • Day 3: Winds return to 5 MPH with sunny skies; temperatures are 50-60 degrees.
  • CARD EXAMPLE 2 (discusses weather conditions)
    • Day 1: Light rain all day and night. Temperatures are 60-70 degrees.
    • Day 2: Light rain all day. Rain ends at sunset. Temperatures are 60-70 degrees.
    • Day 3: Sunny skies all day. Temperatures are 65-75 degrees.
  • Students consider the problem: Create a dance that reflects the weather forecast for the next three days by showing how high and low-pressure systems, as well as warm and cool air, will interact in the atmosphere.
    • Use the following dance elements:
      • Speed: Fast/Slow
      • Level: High/Low
      • Energy: Sudden/Steady
      • Rotation: Clockwise/Counterclockwise
    • Students list the questions that they need to answer before brainstorming dance movements.

PART 2

• Create three movements to show the changing conditions. Each movement should show the weather for one day, making sure to focus on the cause and effect relationship/interaction between the high- and low-pressure systems that will create the predicted weather conditions. Students need to prioritize their questions listed in PART 1 in order to focus on the cause and effect relationship of atmospheric systems. Students identify the dance elements that they will use in their movements.

PART 3

• Students will order their dance movements to communicate the forecast based on the conditions printed on their cards.

PART 4

Students will write down their forecast. They will review the forecast to make sure that it represents the assigned conditions on their cards. Students will correct any inaccuracies, focusing on the high-and-low-pressure systems.

 

Closing Reflection

• Ask students to describe the interaction of high and low pressure in various situations (i.e., a slow-moving high-pressure system versus a fast-moving system), using vocabulary of the Elements of Dance (dance vocabulary words on cards or their own words).
• Ask students to explain how moving their bodies or observing dances in this lesson helps them to understand and describe the differences between high-and-low-pressure systems and how those systems interact in the atmosphere to create weather that we experience on the surface of the planet.

 

Assessments

Formative

Visually observe students formulating questions and exploring movement while discussing atmospheric concepts.

• Teacher observes students correlating temperature, precipitation, and winds with anticyclones and depressions.
• Teacher observes students using vocabulary of the Elements of Dance and vocabulary of atmospheric pressure, together, as they create and sequence movement.
• Teacher observes students arranging movements so they demonstrate atmospheric systems that create weather conditions.

Summative

MATTER IN MOTION CHECKLIST

• Students first list questions, and then prioritize the questions.
• Movement qualities focus on cause and effect/interaction between atmospheric conditions, rather than the weather observed at the surface of the planet.
• Movements are imagined first and then ordered.
• The choreography effectively uses dance to communicate properties of atmospheric systems that contribute to weather conditions.

 

 

Differentiation

Accelerated:  Ask students to consider the impact of land forms in their forecast and vary their movements to show how the atmospheric conditions would change due to the presence of an ocean, mountain, etc. List fewer details about weather or atmospheric conditions on the cards so that students have to draw more conclusions to create their predictions.   Remedial: Divide the class into three groups. Work with only one card printed with weather/atmospheric conditions. Each group creates one movement to show the interaction between low-and-high-pressure systems for one day. As a whole class, order the movements to show the forecast for the three days suggested on the printed card.

 

Additional Resources

Classroom Tips:  Use the opening activities as opportunities for students to identify movements that they will use later in the lesson. If as a whole class students struggle with a movement during this creative time, then recognize effective movement and ask the whole class to model it.

Execute each part of the main activity one at a time, revealing each subsequent step after the current one is completed. In other words, do not permit students to work ahead to encourage the creative effect that results from the scaffolded directions.

 

Credits

Ideas contributed by: Julie Galle Baggenstoss

*This integrated lesson provides differentiated ideas and activities for educators that are aligned to a sampling of standards. Standards referenced at the time of publishing may differ based on each state’s adoption of new standards.

Revised and copyright:  January 2026 @ ArtsNOW

 

 

Georgia Standards

 

South Carolina Standards

 

Key Vocabulary

 

Materials

• Blank index cards, blank paper
• A variety of music selections
• Music source and speakers
• Word bank of dance vocabulary:
  • From the “Time” column of the Elements of Dance
    • Speed: fast/slow
    • Beat: steady/uneven
    • Rhythm: predictable/unpredicable
  • From the “Energy” column of the Elements of Dance
    • Tension: tight/loose
    • Flow: bound/free
    • Elements of Dance handout

 

Instructional Design

Opening/Activating Strategy

• Students improvise movements in a hand dance. Using only their hands and fingers, students work in pairs, with one being the leader and the other the follower. Students sit facing one another so that when they extend their arms in front of them their hands do NOT touch.
• The leader extends one arm and faces the palm of the hand to the other student. The follower extends one arm and faces the palm of one hand to the leader to create a mirror image of the other student’s hand. The leader moves the one hand and fingers in slow steady motions while the follower imitates the movement. The teacher plays music and students move in silence, without talking or making any noise, until the music stops.
• The teacher pauses the music. Partners change roles and repeat the process.
• Partners should mentally note which movements are successful or when they find a movement that they would like to remember for use later in the lesson.

Work Session

PART 1

• Divide students into small groups of three members. Each group will create a game in which players earn points when they use their hands and fingers to show how particles move in reaction to increasing or decreasing thermal energy.
• For the game, participants should be organized into teams. Team members isolate their hands and fingers to create dance movements that represent states of matter to successfully earn points.
• Students list a few of their favorite games and think about the strategy/rules of those games.
• Give each group a few sheets of paper and index cards to use as game materials.

PART 2

• Students list the information that they need to know in order to create the game. In other words, they list questions and answers about scientific concepts, dance concepts, and game rules.
• Students gather the details that they need to plan the game.

PART 3

• Students brainstorm different ways in which players could move their fingers and hands to play the game. They write down dance terms from a word bank derived from the Energy or Time columns of the Elements of Dance to describe the movements.
• Students correlate the dance vocabulary with descriptions of how particles move when matter is a solid, liquid, or gas.

PART 4

• Students imagine how teams could interact in a game so that players earn points by showing the movement of particles when thermal energy is applied, removed, increased, or decreased. Students should consider the different ways that players could describe the presence/absence/increase/decrease of thermal energy, including using words such as warmer or cooler, or absolute measures of temperature, i.e., 32 degrees F or 212 degrees F.
• Students write down the rules of the game.

PART 5

Students test their games by playing them. They note where improvements need to be made and revise their rules. 

 

Closing Reflection

• Ask students to explain how moving their bodies in this lesson helps them to understand and describe the properties of thermal energy and how it impacts matter.
• Ask students to describe how the process of asking questions up front helped them create the game.
• Ask students to describe how brainstorming movements first helped them imagine the play strategy (writing the rules).
• Ask students how they revised their games after the testing phase.

 

Assessments

Formative

Visually observe the students during the process of creativity.

• Teacher observes students discussing and writing questions during PART 2.
• Teacher observes students using vocabulary of the elements of dance and vocabulary of states of matter and thermal energy together, as they brainstorm ways that teams will move to earn points and as they imagine the rules of the games.

Summative

A MATTER OF ISOLATION CHECKLIST

• Movements are limited to hands and fingers.
• Game options contain variation of time and energy elements.
• The game rules effectively use dance to communicate changes in thermal energy so that observers can identify distinct states of matter.

 

 

Differentiation

Accelerated:  Rather than limiting movements to hands and fingers, students explore whole-body axial and locomotor movements to exaggerate molecular activity and/or thermal energy change.   Remedial: Complete PART 2 as a whole class. Stop the activity at the end of PART 2. Assess the use of the first step of the engineering design process, which is to define the problem.

 

Additional Resources

Classroom Tip:  Use the opening activity as an opportunity for students to identify movements that they will use later in the lesson.

 

Credits

Ideas contributed by: Julie Galle Baggenstoss

*This integrated lesson provides differentiated ideas and activities for educators that are aligned to a sampling of standards. Standards referenced at the time of publishing may differ based on each state’s adoption of new standards.

Revised and copyright:  January 2026 @ ArtsNOW