Fibers Natural and Manufactured

Standards

Enduring understanding and essential question

Big idea: Every fabric is made of fibers, and the fiber decides what the fabric can do: how warm it is, whether it breathes, whether it stretches, whether it wrinkles, what it costs, and how you have to wash it. You can find most of that out with your hands in thirty seconds.
Essential question: How do I find out what a fabric will do before I buy it, wear it, or sew with it?

Objectives

By the end of this lesson, students will be able to:

1. (Low: remember or understand) Sort eight named fibers into natural and manufactured, and name the source of each of the four natural fibers.
2. (Mid: apply or analyze) At three test stations, test six labeled swatches by feel, stretch, and water drop, and record for each swatch what it does and one use it would be good for.
3. (High: evaluate or create) Given a use (a winter hat, a soccer jersey, a dress shirt for a job interview, a swimsuit), evaluate which of the six swatches is the best choice and defend it with two performance characteristics from their own test data.

Vocabulary

Tier 2 (general academic): property, characteristic, source, absorb, compare, evidence
Tier 3 (FACS): fiber, natural fiber, manufactured fiber, cotton, wool, silk, linen, polyester, nylon, rayon, spandex, blend, wicking, absorbent, breathable, static. See the unit vocabulary list (Vocabulary 05.md) for Turkish, Portuguese, and Spanish.

Materials and setup

Three stations of about seven students. Each station runs the same three tests on the same six swatches, so nothing has to rotate between stations except students' attention.

Per station:

• Six labeled swatches, about four inches square, one of each: cotton (an old T-shirt or muslin), wool (a thrifted sweater or felt made of wool), silk or linen (a thrifted blouse or a linen napkin), polyester (a fleece or a cheap dress shirt), nylon (a windbreaker or tights), spandex blend (leggings or a swim fabric). Label each with a letter A to F on masking tape, not with the fiber name. [Sal: cut these from thrifted garments once and they last for years. Keep a master set in a labeled bag in the Unit 5 bin. One thrift store bag of six garments at about $2 each gives you twenty sets.]
• One small cup of water and one eye dropper or pipette
• One paper towel
• One magnifier or a phone camera on zoom, optional but good for the weave
• One answer envelope, sealed, with the six letters and their true fibers inside, opened only at Step 4

For the whole class:

• Handout, one per student: Handout 05.03 - Fiber Test Station Record.md
• Slides: Slides 05.03 - Fibers Natural and Manufactured (outline in 05 Materials; the site renders it as a deck)
• The burn demonstration kit, teacher only: a metal pie pan or a ceramic dish, a long lighter or matches, metal tweezers or tongs, a cup of water, the room's fire extinguisher within reach, one two-inch snip of each of three fibers only (cotton, wool, polyester). The room's exhaust fan or an open window. [Sal: check the building's policy on open flame in a classroom before you plan on this. Many buildings say no, and the lesson works without it.]
• Index cards for the closure
• Timer visible to the class
• Setup notes: cut and label swatches the day before. Fill the water cups at the start of the period, not before, so nothing spills overnight. If the burn demonstration is running, clear a three-foot radius at the front table, move the class's chairs behind a taped line on the floor, and tell the class the day before that there will be a small flame at the front, because a student with a trauma history or an asthma trigger needs a chance to tell me quietly. That student sits at the back with the video version and no comment is made.

Pre-assessment

The do now sorts fiber names before any teaching. Scan for two things: who knows that polyester is made in a factory, and who thinks cotton comes from an animal. Those two answers tell me how much of Step 1 is review. Yesterday's optional homework (the words off a care label) also arrives today; ask for a show of hands on who has one, and read two aloud.

Do now and hook (Time: 5 min)

On the board as students enter: "Here are eight words: cotton, wool, silk, linen, polyester, nylon, rayon, spandex. Four come from a plant or an animal. Four are made in a factory. Sort them into two lists. Guess if you do not know."

Debrief in ninety seconds: take the natural list from one student, the manufactured list from another, correct with the slide (rayon is the tricky one: it starts as wood pulp and gets made into fiber in a factory, so it counts as manufactured). Then the hook: hold up a fleece jacket and a wool sweater. "One of these is made from a plastic bottle. One is made from a haircut. Both keep you warm. By the end of the period you will be able to tell them apart with your hands."

Procedure

Day total: 5 (the do now) plus 10 plus 12 plus 5 plus 4 plus 4 (the closure) = 40 minutes.

Questions to ask

Monitor understanding:

• Which four of the eight are natural? Where does each come from?
• Swatch C beaded the water. Is that good or bad for a raincoat? For a towel?
• Which swatch came back after you stretched it? What is in it?
• Which one wrinkled the most in your fist?

Deepen learning:

• A polyester shirt dries fast and a cotton shirt breathes. Which do you want for a soccer game in August, and why is the answer not the same for a job interview in the same weather?
• Wool is warm even when it is damp. Why does that matter more to a hiker than to somebody riding a bus to school?
• Fleece is made from plastic. Every wash sends tiny plastic fibers down the drain. Does that change what you would buy? What else would you have to give up?
• Silk costs more than polyester and a polyester blouse can look almost the same. What is the buyer paying for?
• A firefighter's gear is not fleece. Now that you have seen polyester melt, say why in one sentence.

Check for understanding

Clipboard during Step 2: for each student, a yes or no on "all three tests filled for at least four swatches" and "the use column names a real use, not a color." At Step 4, the count of correct guesses per swatch tells me which fiber the class cannot feel yet. The one they miss is almost always rayon or the silk-versus-polyester pair; that becomes the two-minute review before Assessment 05.1.

Closure (Time: 4 min)

3-2-1 exit card: 3 things you learned about a fabric with your hands today; 2 fibers you can now tell apart and how; 1 question about fibers or care. Three students read one line aloud. Sort into "got it" and "needs more." Any card that cannot name a single test result gets a one-minute check-in during Lesson 5.4's do now.

Differentiation and supports

• ELL: the six swatches are the vocabulary; a student can point and use one word (rough, smooth, wet, back) instead of a sentence. The handout's test columns are checkboxes and circles, not writing. The word bank on the handout carries fiber, natural, manufactured, absorb, stretch, wrinkle, warm in Turkish, Portuguese, and Spanish (see Vocabulary 05.md). The burn narration gets a word on the slide for each result (ash, bead, melt, smell) as it happens.
• IEP and 504 (general): a student who cannot tolerate certain textures does the stretch and water tests only and takes the feel column from a partner's report, with no comment; a student with a sensitivity to smoke or a trauma history around fire sits at the back with the video version, arranged quietly the day before; extended time means Part 4 can be finished at the start of Lesson 5.4; printed station steps sit at each station so nobody depends on hearing the directions once; the record sheet accepts a drawn mark instead of a word in every column.
• Grade 6 support: four swatches instead of six (cotton, wool, polyester, spandex) and two use questions instead of four.
• Grade 8 stretch: add a blend swatch (a 60 percent cotton, 40 percent polyester shirt) as swatch G and have the student explain what each fiber contributes to the blend and why a manufacturer would pay for the mix; also predict, before the demonstration, what the blend would do in a flame, then check it against the two pure results.
• UDL checkpoint used: multiple means of representation (the fiber content arrives as a slide table, as a physical swatch, and as a demonstration) and multiple means of action and expression (the record can be filled with circles, words, or a partner's dictation).
• No-kitchen or no-machine alternative: no kitchen and no machines are needed. No-water version: skip the drop test and run the wrinkle test (fist for ten seconds, rate 1 to 3) plus a breath test (hold the swatch to the mouth and breathe out; a breathable fabric lets the air through). No-flame version is written into Step 3 above and is the default until the building says otherwise.

Assessment

Homework

None. Optional: find the fiber content tag in one thing you own (it is usually near the care label or in a side seam) and write down the words and the percentages. Bring the words, not the garment.

Connections

Science: the burn test is a materials science demonstration, and the science teacher may already have a fume hood, which is a better place for it than a FACS room; trade the fiber swatches for ten minutes at their hood. Health and PE: wicking versus absorbing is why the PE teacher tells students not to wear a cotton shirt for the mile run, and PE can say it in one sentence at the start of that unit. Community: a local dry cleaner or tailor will usually give a bag of fabric scraps and thirty seconds on which fiber gives them the most trouble; they get a class that stops bringing them ruined wool. [Sal: ask the cleaner near the school; scraps are free and they have plenty.]

Sources

• NYS Middle Level CTE FACS Content Module 03, Apparel and Textile Production and Design (nyctecenter.org, June 2018), lines 1. a) and 3. a). Copy in 02 Standards/NYS Module PDFs/.
• NYS Middle Level CTE Theme Module 04, Health, Safety, and Wellness, line 4. a); Theme Module, Sustainability, line 2. e). Text per 02 Standards/NYS ML CTE FACS Modules - verbatim extract of all twelve.md.
• NYS Learning Standards for Health, Physical Education, and Family and Consumer Sciences (1996), Standard 2, Intermediate, Key Idea and PI C. Wording per the crosswalk, Part A.6.
• National Standards for Family and Consumer Sciences Education 3.0 (LEAD FCS Education, 2018), competencies 16.2.1, 16.2.2, and 16.2.4, per 02 Standards/STANDARDS SOURCES - web research.md, section 4.16.
• Burn test results (flame behavior, odor, and residue for cotton, wool, and polyester) are the standard identification results published in textile science references and in cooperative extension fiber identification guides. [Sal: pick one source and put it on the slide; a university extension fiber burn chart is the cleanest citation and is usually a free PDF.]
• Fire response wording is carried over verbatim from Lesson 01.03 - Fire, Burns, Cuts, and What To Do.md so students hear the same rules in the same words.

Teacher notes

• If the period runs short, cut Step 3 to two fibers (cotton and polyester); those two show the burn-versus-melt difference by themselves. Never cut Step 2; the hands are the lesson.
• Get building permission for an open flame in writing before you plan on it, and if the answer is no, say so to the class plainly. "The building says no flame in this room, so we are watching the video and doing the wrinkle test" costs you nothing and teaches them that rules apply to me too.
• Common mistake: students flood the swatch. Say "one drop" and demonstrate the dropper once. Put a count on it: one drop, count to ten, then look.
• Common mistake: students decide a fabric's fiber by its color or by whether they like it. Push them back to the three test columns every time.
• Label the swatches with letters, not names, and keep the answer envelope sealed. The guess-then-check is the reason students care about the test data.
• The spandex swatch is the one everybody gets right and the silk-versus-polyester pair is the one nobody does. Plan the two-minute review around that pair.
• [Sal: your room, your materials. If you have a scrap bin from the sewing stations, use it for the swatches and save the thrift trip. Keep one swatch of each for the Lesson 5.4 laundry sort.]