Lesson Plan - OT - Judges

 This post follows on from the previous few posts where:

1. I reviewed the scriptures for this week's Come Follow Me Primary lesson. (link)
2. I then brainstormed various science themes that could link to the scriptures. (link)
3. Yesterday I worked up one of those themes into a potential lesson plan. (link)

In this post, I'll provide a concise lesson plan for teachers to use if they find this useful. The first part of this post (in green) is an overview of the lesson aims, and the second part (in yellow) is the actual lesson plan that you can use. 

Writing down the lesson plan for this weekend's Primary lesson. Photo by Nils Stahl on Unsplash

Overview

What's the lesson about?

It's about Gideon, one of the many Judges of Israel following the Prophet Joshua, struggling to have faith in Heavenly Father, and frequently doubting his veracity and asking for proof of his existence. It's also about the unorthodox way in which Gideon selected warriors for his battle against the Midianites, by selecting those who lapped water like dogs. 

What's the spiritual theme?

We know Heavenly Father and the the Holy Spirit is around us, even though we can't see it. Sometimes it'll suggest things to us that may not make the most sense at the time, but will do later. 

What's the science topic?

We'll do one simple physics experiment where we'll demonstrate that we can create dewdrops from seemingly nothing. We'll also study results from a recent science paper on how dogs drink water.

How does the science relate to the spiritual theme?

The dew creation shows that as you cool down the ambient air, you'll enable gaseous water vapour in the air to condensate on the cold surface, turning into visible liquid water. Water vapour is all around us but it's not visible until we do this experiment.

The dog study shows that dogs lap water by hitting it hard, causing a pressure gradient that leads to the formation of a column of water that extends up to the dog's mouth. It's a really smart and high efficiency way of drinking water, and shows that dogs drink this way for a reason. Perhaps Heavenly Father asked Gideon to select soldiers who drank like dogs because they could do the things they needed to do better than the others.

What will make it fun?

The dew experiment is something the kids can do, whilst the dog study results should hopefully be really interesting in their own right. Finally we'll do some Wordle puzzles.

Lesson Plan

Here's what you'll need in advance:

1. Some ice.
2. Two glass cups.
3. Some room temperature tap water. 
4. Paper and colouring pencils.
5. A set of scriptures (Old Testament)

The plan for the lesson is as follows:

1. Introduce the Book of Judges.
   
   
2. Read Judges 6:37-40, and discuss why Gideon kept asking for proof of Heavenly Father's existence. Do we still need this proof?
   
   
3. Set up the dew experiment. 
1. Fill one cup with lots of ice.
2. Fill both cups with water.
3. Leave them for the rest of the lesson. 
4. Explain what water vapour is, what dew is, and what should happen.
   
   
4. Read Judges 7:4-7, and explain why and how Heavenly Father asked Gideon to pick some soldiers. Explain the story of the 300 men defeating the Midianites (this 3 minute Saddleback Kids video summarises it well).
   
   
5. Delve into the recent study of dog lapping. Ask the kids how they think the tongue works to get water into a dog's mouth. Show the pictures from the study that demonstrate how the impact of the tongue creates a high pressure region that results in a column of water briefly forming, which the dogs can drink. Show this YouTube slow motion video at the 1min 20-24 seconds range which clearly shows how this pressure gradient forms. 
   
   
   
   
   

   High speed camera photos of a dog lapping water, from Figure 1 of the PNAS article "Dogs lap using acceleration-driven open pumping" (2015).

1. What can we summise from this? Do we think this is a clever way to drink water? Why would Heavenly Father select people who drank like dogs? They ended up being able to defeat an army, so was there something special about these people?
   
   
6. Play a game of Wordle with the kids, where they have to guess the following 5 letter words related to the lessson:
   
1. https://mywordle.strivemath.com/?word=sokhc - "water"
2. https://mywordle.strivemath.com/?word=bozws - "faith"
   
   
7. Recheck the cups of water and see if any dew / condensate has formed on the ice containing cup.
   
   
8. Summary of the lesson.
1. We can't see water vapour, just like we can't see Heavenly Father and the Holy Spirit, but they're there around us. The Holy Spirit may give suggestions that seem as odd as Heavenly Father requesting selecting water-lapping soldiers, but as with the case of these soldiers defeating a much greater army, the reasons may take a while to reveal themselves.
   
   
9. Ask the children to draw a mind map or picture of what the Holy Spirit means to them, and how they know it's real.
1. It could be nice to share some testimonies of this too.
   
   
10. Closing prayer.

I hope you find this lesson plan useful, whether it's for using for your lesson as-is, or for inspiration for putting your own touch on the lesson. If you have any comments or feedback, feel free to reply in the comments below, or on the Twitter thread.