Activities, Demos and Labs by Unit

First Day Activities

• Ice breakers for class climate
• Mystery Tube (see yellow flinn flyer)
• Brainteassers - ask them how solving brain teasers is like doing science
• Provide students with card with different views about science and ask them to pick a set that best represent what science is

Extra Credit/End of Year Project Ideas

• Posters
  • Mole map
  • If you aren't part of the solution - you're the precipitate!
  • organic nomenclature poster
• Reserach using ChemMatters article
• Chemistry of bread/chocolate/other food report
• Root beer making
• Tie Dye
• History of nylon, dyes, aspirin
• End of semester 1 project: find a compound a classify it's bonds, explain it's physical properties using polarity and IMF
• End of semester 2 project: extraction of potassium nitrate from soil See Feb. JCE 2006
• Career of the month poster (job description, training, pay)

Experiment Design and Measurement

• Mystery tube - see yellow flinn paper
• Dimension Analysis Rummy
• Milk Swirling
• MOREMaking observations: make macroscopic observations, now use words and pictures to describe what's happening at the molelcular level (see ST oct-05)
• comentatorHave students act as commentators as they watch the demo. Have them pretend they are radio broadcasters and are describing the phenomenon to people who can't see it.
• measurement lab - emphasize the use of correct significant figures and uncertainty
• Factors that affect the size of pipet drop

Matter and Energy

• Physical properties of slime, gak, etc.
• Use polymers in sneaker to bring relevence to discussion of chemistry. Different kinds of polymers have different properties. For example, in sneakers- important that polymer acts as schock absorber. What about the polymer allows it to have those properties? Show some examples of other polymers that would be terrible - gak, cornstarch and water, etc.
• Talk about discovery of nylon...happened during WWI in search for replacement for silk for parachutes.
• Describe as thoroughly as you can: (Al shot, vinegar, 1 M HCl, corn syrum, Zn shot, 1 M NaOH, CaCO3 (s), 0.1 M Na2SO4, 0.1 M BaCl2, CuSO4-5H2O, NaCl, sodium polyacrylate (s), citric acid (s), SrCl2, sand, and distilled H2O (See pg 56 ST Oct-05)
• Calvin and Hobbes Plane/Train crash separation project
• Learning Element Names: T-shirts
• Pastry prowler: design tests to uniquely identify certain powders (sugar, salt, flour, cornstarch, baking soda)

Atomic Structure

• Timeline
• If around halloween: write an obituary for one of the scientists, make a grave stone
• Webquest
• Poster presentation of experimental evidence
• Rutherford Lab
• Pins in beadboard - put upside down and have them roll marbles and what not to locate pins
• Mystery tube - see yellow flinn paper
• Mystery Box, students have to develop a theory of what's in the box and defend it. Other's verify it. Sometimes in light of new information. They never get to see what's in the box. Students write a reflection about how the felt and how it relates to the scientific community.
• Flame Tests
• Gas Emission Tube Lab...
  • Practice writing detailed hypothesis
• Build a spectroscope
• Inquiry Labs
  • Can you get a tan or sunburn through a glass window?
  • Which sunglasses really block UV? Are the expensive ones much better?
    • Beers Law Sunscreen Lab
  • Are the Sunburn Protection Factor numbers on sunscreen packaging really meaningful?
  • Is there a limit to how protective SPF really is?
  • How important is it that sunscreen be applied in a thick layer?

Periodic Trends

• Mendeleev Card Game or Alien Card Game
• Graph Ionization energies
• Linguini Plotting of trends
• Graph IE vs atomic number and write an analysis
• Find the relationship between IE, EA, EN, AR and a physical property (practice writing hypothesis, analysis)
• Cartoon of trends
• Use periodic table live! to discover properties of alkali metals
• Cs and Rb in water video
• How the millitary got rid of Na
• Evaluate other periodic tables
  • Galaxy
• Create a periodic table of anything (contents of fridge, e.g.)

Ionic Bonding

• Valence-tine (Valentine sent from one element to another)
• "Valence-tine" Make a valentine using what you know about elements in a compound
• Ion bingo
• Making ionic compoudns with ion dice "Ion Para-dice"
• Hydrate Lab
• Percent sugar in bubble gum lab
• Percent water in popcorn lab
• Singles ad for an element/ion

Covalent Bonding

• End of semester 1 project: find a compound and classify it's bonds, explain it's physical properties using polarity and IMF
• Group rotation for empirical formula practice
• Evaporation Rate Lab (also states of matter unit)
• Percent sugar in bubble gum lab
• Percent water in popcorn lab
• Molecular Model Kits for Geometry and VSEPR
• VSEPR tutorials and short videos for visualization

Reactions

• Identify the unknown solution from a list of possibilities (NaCl, Na2SO4, Co(NO3)2, Pb(NO3)2, K2C42O4, Na3PO4, BaCl2, CuCl2, AgNO3. (See pg 56 ST Oct-05)
• Reactions of acids lab
• Precipitation Reactions Lab
• Activity Series Lab
• Oxidation states of Manganese Lab

Stoichiometry

• Chemical formula determination
  • Lead Nitrate and Potassium Iodide in microplates. Have same concentration of each. Students drop 12 drops total into 12 wells, chaning ratio of Pb(NO3)2 to KI each time (1:11, 2:10,...) Well with most precipitate is in stoichiometric ratio.
  • Formula by dehydration: copper sulfate pentahydrate, epsom salt, potassium chlorate, sodium bicarbonate
  • Paper clips and copper chloride - is it Iron III or Iron II that is formed?
• What products are formed when baking soda is heated?
• Unknown solution of Copper Nitrate- find molarity (use precipitation)
• Number of moles of candle wax burned
• Smores (with bunsen burners???)
• Fill baggy to plumpness with vinegar and baking soda
• Calculate the pressure inside a popcorn kernel before it pops (assume T=100 C)
• Percent yield
  • Alka-seltzer (measure difference in mass when CO2 is given off, requires knowing the limiting reactant)
  • Zinc and HCl (can measure difference in mass or use PV=nRT)
• Limiting Reactant
  • Bakng Soda, Vinegar, Balloon Funnel 4g, 7g, 11g, 17g baking soda into four balloons. Pour 100 mL of vinegar into four separate flasks. Carefully put balloons over top of flask w/o spilling baking soda in. Have students each hold flask and shake baking soda into vinegar. Production of CO2 blows up balloon. Some balloons will be the same size, one will have left over baking soda.
  • Charcoal Would it use up all the oxygen in the world if it burned? No, charcoal is limiting. Put in jar. Is there enuf oxygen to burn all of briquet? No, oxygen is limiting.

Energy

Labs
• Insulation Contest Students insulate a bottle o hot water to try to minimize the heat loss. They then compare rates of cooling using a temperature probe.
• Solution combination contestStudents are given two solution that react exothermically when mixed. (ex. 0.5 M solutions of NaOCl and Na2S2O3). Students are challenged to produce the largest temperature increase they can. tabindex=cannot increase the conecentraion of the solutions, but only adjust the ratio of the two. The winner is the student who combines the solutions in the correct stoichiometric ratio.
• Heaing Curve
  • Easy heating curve with temperature probes in ice water in styrofoam container
  • (try paraffin and keep test tubes for next year)
• Hot Pack/Cold Pack Test several salts and determine which would best be used for a hot/cold pack (CaCl2 and ammonium chloride possibly others)
• Food Lab from combustion of food, calculation of calories
  
  Demos
• Demonstration - freezing block to flask/entropy
• Heat capacity demo w/ paper cup over bunsen burner (heat air in paper cup, heat water in paper cup)
  
  Animations/Videos
• Driving forces of reactions - world of chemistry video
• Arson Investigation (NOVA)
• Article: Artificial Snow

Gas Laws

Demos
• Change in Temp
  • Candle, pan, waterPlace a jar or beaker over a lit candle in a pan of water ofr students to observe the candle go out, bubbles created, and the water level in the jar rise.
  • Handboiler
  • Crushing can boil water in soda can for awhile. Invert into pan of cold water
  • Crushing bottleadd boiling water to plastic 1 L bottle. Swirl, pour out, place cap on. Set aside and watch implode.
  • Balloon inside flaskboil water in flask for awhile. Quickly dump excess and place balloon over mouth. Ballon should be "sucked" inside.
• Change in Pressure
  • Vacuum PumpMarshmallow, twinkie, shaving cream, water, carbonated water, balloon
  • Blowing up a balloonBlow up balloon in a 1 L bottle is difficult unless there are holes in the bottom
• Air Pressure ContestStudents are given 1 L bottles and pressure probe and asked to measure highest possible pressure. They are only allowed to use their bodies. Measure pressure with pressure probes.
• Determine and graph the quantitative gas relationship between one of these pairs: P and V, V and T, or P and T, keeping the other constant (See pg 56 ST Oct-05)
  • Boyles Law Lab
  • Charles Law Lab
• Determine molar volume - decomposition of KClO3
• Vapor pressure vs Temperature (pressure probes)

States of Matter

• Heating/Cooling curve
• Evaporation Rates with drops on wax paper (or design your own experiment for testing evaporation rates)
• Evaporation with temperature probes
• Demos
  • Boil water at room temp with vacuum pump
  • Melt ice with pressure (wire, held down by weight, over block of ice)
  • Video: boil tea in plastic bottle...

Solutions

• Freezing Point Depression Contest Students are challenged to produce the lowest temperature possible using water, ice, and a salt. What salt is best? What concentration is best?
• Determine how temperature affects the solubility of KNO3 (See pg 56 ST Oct-05)
• What is the concentration of the copper sulfate solution (colorimeter) (See pg 56 ST Oct-05)
• Students design a snow globe
• Beers Law Lab
• Miscibility Labs
  • Oil, Water, Soap, Food coloring
  • Mixing oils and waxes vs ionic compounds and water and/or alcohols
  • Which materials are soluble in water and are there any patterns? (See pg 56 ST Oct-05)
• Factors that affect absorption/solubility
  • Students can look at: solubility of salts, absorption through filter paper, Rf/chromatography, solubility of gases (soda, alka-seltzer), emulsifying agent, foaming action of soaps, etc.

Equilibrium/Reaction Rates

• Demos
  • Catalysts: demo with MnO2 and H2O2 as heterogeneous catalyst and demo with NaI or KI for homogeneous catalyst. Or Cobalt II catalyst demo.
  • Iodine clock reaction demo
  • Oscillating reaction
  • Cobalt Chloride lab
• Sulfur clock reaction (sodium thiosulfate and 6.0 M HCl). Make plots and determine order of reaction and rate law
• Food coloring and bleach, concentration vs. time use colorimeter
• Maxwell-Boltzmann
  • Number of kernels that pop in 15 seconds
  • Money game (JCE
  • Drop pennies: hieght vs. distance from bullseye
• Simulations
  • Equilibrium simulation with jars and caps
  • 1 dropper/straw vs. 2 droppers/straws and water
  • (IB) Moving coins back and forth to simulate dynamic equilibrium

Acids and Bases

• Vinegar Project
• Reactions of Acids Lab
• Titration simulation
• Standardization of NaOH
• Make natural indicator
• Boil water - what is the pH?

Redox

• Redox titration of vitamin C
• Activity series (pg 300 in book)
• Activity series with halides (use baby oil)

Organic

• Make a "city map" of organic reactions pathways
• Polymers
  • Slime Lab
  • Build paper polymers lab

Nuclear

• Twizzler Half-life lab
• Twizzler and M&M half-life lab
• Istope lab with fruit loops or something else where kids are building atoms with fruit loops and weighing them.
• Different take on above where atoms are already made and kids are handed a bunch. Have to determine abundance as well as average mass and isotopes.
• Anticipation guide regarding misconceptions about nuclear energy
• Calculate the millirems you are exposed to each day Radiation Does Calculator
• Tie four balloons together (alpha particle), throw it - doesn't go very far. Put one balloon and another small soft ball inside a larger balloon. Pop it- small ball goes really far, hopefully.

History/nature of science

• Research a scientist or chemical - write report/poster/resume/personal letter/diary entry/news article/old time advertisement