Potions Class!

My students know that I'm a pretty big geek.  One of my goals as a teacher is to identify and draw out the inner geek in my students.  For an activity that I am doing to review a lot of the chemical reactions concepts we are going to create potions.  I Start by having them read excerpts from Harry Potter.  We then identify the things involved with making a potion that are nearly identical to creating chemical reactions.

Aftwerwards, I have them run through a series of stations that illustrate a different chemical concept.  However, since this is a potions themed lesson, I've renamed all of the chemicals to something a bit more...interesting.

 

Here's a classic vinegar and baking soda experiment.  I've changed the concentrations of the vinegar to show how the reaction rate can be controlled.  Also, the reaction is being done in a closed system (balloon) so that the "spirit" that is released can be captured.

 

Here's a reaction with luminol and hydrogen peroxide that produces light.  I tell them that they're making a firefly lure potion.

These reactants will precipitate silver, which can stick to the inside of a test tube and make it shiny.

For acid/base chemistry, they'll create a potion that can change into ALL OF THE COLORS OF THE RAINBOOOOOOOOW!!! (with a universal indicator)

Finally, they'll produce "fairy flames" from a variety of fairy samples.

Iodine Clock!

This week we are discussing reaction rates.  I had my students mix the reactants for an iodine clock reaction with increasing amounts of water to dilute them.  The result was a series of reactions that were arranged in order of fastest to slowest.  I had all of the students mix at the same time to get an inetersting, domino-like effect.

Cornstarch FIREBALL!

Today we are discussing different ways to increase the rate of a chemical reaction.  The concept of surface area is often difficult to teach to 8th graders.  Whenever I have a difficult concept to teach, I usually resort to lighting something on fire.

Corn starch is a chemically unreactive substance...until it is dispersed into a cloud.  Then it can be ignited into a spectacular fireball.  Below are two clips of me doing just that at 300 and 600 frames per second.

300 FPS

 

 

 

600 FPS

LEGO Chemistry!

Chemistry is an abstract thing.  I do not possess the ability to show students how bonds are broken and reformed in real time.  We have to use models.  A particularly peevish concept to teach is that of conservation of mass.  I've jumped into balancing chemical equations with students and lost most of them immediately.

So...nowadays I bust out the LEGOs.

Before we multiply coefficients and compare reactants with products, we get a sense for how mass is held constant through a chemical reaction.  Students make something out of LEGOs.  They record the mass.  Students combine their construct with another and record the total mass.  Students break their object into several smaller objects and record the mass.

Besides the small differences in measurements (we discuss the to err is to be human idea), the total mass of the objects remains constant.

Now, we can talk about how elements combine to form products knowing that nothing will be created or destroyed.  Just substitute chemical symbols in for bricks.

Chemistry Continues

Growing up, I rarely had a chemistry set to work with.  I do recall friends who did though.  I recall them looking something like:

My personal chemistry set looked something more like:

When trying to think of a fun way to introduce students to chemical reactions, I recalled how much fun it is to simply mix unknown things together to find out which might explode.  That is the goal of course...to blow up the kitchen with mixtures of cleaning solutions.

As it turns out, my students experience the same kind of excitement if I give them an array of chemicals to mix together and observe for any kind of chemical change.  I don't tell them that there's no chance of fire erupting from their beakers, and they will continue mixing combinations of chemicals together in hopes that it will.

The Chemistry BEGINS!

We've started looking at chemical reactions.  Today was the kind of day the I recall from childhood.  Perhaps you had a Science Kit and perhaps you just went through the bottles of items under your sink, but most likely you once mixed random things together to see what would blow up.  Today, my students are doing just that...in a controlled setting.

The excitement is still there.  Sometimes they might think that if they get the right combination of chemicals, they'll set fire to the school (they won't).  But I enjoy watching them try.

Hovering Droplets

Sometimes I do an experiment where students add drops of water to a penny to see how many they can fit onto the sirface before it overflows.  This lesson is designed to teach them about surface tension and how the molecules of water cling to each other on the surface of the water.  This time around, I found a video where droplets of water hovered on a dish of water with sound pumped through it.  I was able to duplicate the results with my bass amplifier.

SCIENCE!!!

Golden Pennies!

No, they're not gold.  I like to introduce the idea of alloys by creating brass with a copper/zinc mixture.  I like this demonstration, because I pose the question to my students about whether or not I should be able to create gold.

Some of them think I can because I'm Mr. Science Man with the fancy chemicals and devices.  Some of them figure out that if I could turn pennies to gold, then I would probably be doing that instead of teaching.  In the end, I explain that we mixed two metals together and they each get a shiny "gold" penny as a souvenir.

Heavy Metal Metals

In order to give my students practice with using the periodic table and identifying properties of elements, I have them write songs about metals.

I usually write a song as well and this year was no exception.  I chose "Surfer Girl" by the Beach Boys.  The song is pretty short and simple.  I know a few chords on guitar, and like to perform my "metal" song.

 

My songs usually end up being nonsensical and cheesy, but I encourage students to go for that kind of result.  Most of the music they listen to is lyrically absurd anyways.  Sometimes, I'll get one or two groups per class to perform their songs as well.

 

Happy Halloween!

I didn't have a chance to carve pumpkins in class this year.  However, this is how I do it:

Mr. Doran's Science Review Game

It's Mario Kart!

I decided to tweak my review game to incorporate elements from Mario Kart.  The game has persisted across generations of gamers since the early nineties.  So much about the series is recognizable to a typical eighth grade student.  Most of them still groan when I whisper blue sheeellllllll.

I created a list of questions to use with the answers.  This is a test on Matter, so there are questions about properties of matter, states of matter, gas laws, etc.

I built a race course on the whiteboard.  I built a practice course for my students because this is the first time they were playing the game.  I also built Rainbow Road. 

I printed, cut out, and magnetized some characters.  I went with the SNES lineup.

 

 

The Rules.  All teams were given a small whiteboard to write their answers on.  Every round, I would ask a question to the class.  They would answer the question on the whiteboard and show the answer when I called for it.  Correct answers moved their character two spaces forward on the game board.

I printed out "items" cards for them to collect when the passed the "?" squares.  These cards could be used on the other players.  They served a similar function as the items in the actual game.

First team to finish wins!  We had enough time for a single lap.

Results.  The students loved the game.  I liked that the game had less random chance and more skill and knowledge based strategies.  Players were rewarded for knowing their Science and for playing the game well.  I was able to get through about 30 Science related quesitons in a class period (43 minutes).  I look forward to adding elements to the game; like more items and more interesting maps.