Skip to content

Where Does Your Energy Come From?

Run the Where Does Your Energy Come From? MicroSim Fullscreen

You can embed this MicroSim in your own course website with this iframe:

<iframe src="./main.html" width="100%" height="454px" scrolling="no"></iframe>

About this MicroSim

Where Does Your Energy Come From? is an interactive MicroSim for this health-education textbook.

Students explain the cause-and-effect relationship between eating food and having energy to grow, move, and think, using a step-through scenario of a school day.

Use the controls in the panel below the drawing to interact with the model, then talk through what changed and why. The MicroSim is width-responsive and can be embedded in any course page with the iframe shown above.

Bloom's Taxonomy level: Understand (L2) — explain, interpret

Lesson Plan

Audience

This MicroSim is designed for Grade 2. For the K-3 bands the teacher typically drives the activity on a shared screen; older students can explore the MicroSim independently.

Learning Objective

Students explain the cause-and-effect relationship between eating food and having energy to grow, move, and think, using a step-through scenario of a school day.

This activity targets Bloom's Understand (L2) (explain, interpret).

Suggested Use (about 10 minutes)

  1. Warm up (2 min). Ask students what they already know about the topic and let one volunteer describe what they see on the screen.
  2. Model it (3 min). Demonstrate the interaction once, thinking aloud so students hear the reasoning behind each choice.
  3. Guided practice (3 min). Invite students to try the interaction and to predict what will happen before they act.
  4. Discuss (2 min). Ask why the result came out the way it did, connecting the on-screen result back to the learning objective above.

Check for Understanding

Have each student (or pair) explain their result in one sentence, using the vocabulary from this chapter. Look for reasoning that matches the Understand-level objective rather than a lucky guess.

Specification

The full specification below was extracted from Chapter 2: Food, Energy, and Safe Eating.

Type: microsim
**sim-id:** food-energy-cause-effect<br/>
**Library:** p5.js<br/>
**Status:** Specified

Bloom Taxonomy: Understand (L2)
Bloom Taxonomy Verb: explain, interpret

Learning objective: Students explain the cause-and-effect relationship between eating food and having energy to grow, move, and think, using a step-through scenario of a school day.

Canvas layout:
- Top area (150px): A timeline strip showing four moments in a school day (Breakfast, Morning Class, Recess, Afternoon Snack)
- Middle area (250px): A character whose "energy meter" (a simple bar or battery icon) rises and falls at each moment
- Bottom strip (100px): Step-through "Next" and "Back" buttons with a caption

Visual elements:
- Energy meter styled like a friendly battery icon (empty to full)
- Character shown running, thinking, or yawning depending on energy level

Interactive controls:
- Button: "Next" advances to the next moment in the day
- Button: "Back" returns to the previous moment
- Click the energy meter at any time to see a caption explaining the current energy level

Default parameters:
- Starts at "Breakfast" with a full energy meter

Data Visibility Requirements:
  Stage 1: Show "Breakfast" — energy meter fills up, caption: "Food gives the body energy to start the day."
  Stage 2: Show "Morning Class" — energy meter slightly lower, caption: "The body uses energy to think and pay attention."
  Stage 3: Show "Recess" — energy meter drops more, caption: "Running and playing use up energy fast!"
  Stage 4: Show "Afternoon Snack" — energy meter refills, caption: "Eating again gives the body more energy to finish the day."

Behavior:
- Each step change animates the energy meter rising or falling and updates the caption
- If the student clicks "Next" repeatedly past snack, the cycle can loop back to show energy needs happen all day, every day

Instructional Rationale: This is an Understand-level (explain) objective focused on cause and effect, so the design uses a step-through timeline with visible energy-level data at each stage rather than continuous animation, letting students trace the cause (eating) to the effect (energy available) explicitly.

Implementation notes: Use p5.js. Keep the energy meter large and simple, like a battery icon. Captions should be large enough for read-aloud.

References