Skip to Content

I used this Mix and Match Mass Mini Lab with my Chemistry students at the beginning of the year to give them some practice estimating mass and measuring mass using the triple beam balance. I wanted my students to get a feel for different masses. For example, I wanted my students to have a visual …

Read More about Mix and Match Mass Mini Lab

While preparing to review lab safety at the beginning of my chemistry course, I ran across a “Spot the Safety Hazards” story on Ms. Randall’s Science Weebly. On page 3 of this PDF, she includes a story that students must read. As they read, students must underline or highlight all of the lab safety violations …

Read More about Spot the Safety Hazards Story

What Not to Do Laboratory is a great way to review lab safety procedures at the beginning of the school year. I used this a few years ago with my chemistry students, and it sparked many great conversations. Source of Activity The original What Not to Do Laboratory poster is the creation of The Laboratory …

Read More about What Not to Do Laboratory

We made ice cream in a bag as our last lab of the year in Chemistry. My students were pretty skeptical that the process would actually result in ice cream, and they were pleasantly surprised as a result. One student brought in M&M’s and Heath bits as topping. Super yummy! Here’s our recipe if you’re …

Read More about Ice Cream in a Bag Lab

I am so blessed to be married to a teacher because my husband doesn’t even bat an eye when I ask him to do things like buy me some six foot long pieces of pipe insulation at Lowe’s.  Note to self: pick a non-windy day to try and bring this into the building! Shaun also …

Read More about Marble Roller Coasters

Teaching a science class this year has me doing more projects than I’ve probably ever done in all my previous years as a math teacher.  Setting up projects in an effective way has been a definite learning curve. This week, my students have been working on designing egg drop devices.  I had students break into …

Read More about Egg Drop Gallery Walk Activity

For our next experiment on chemical reactions in physical science, we made rust.  I thought that I had learned from my mistakes with the previous effervescent tablets lab.   We spent a class period designing the lab together.  We wrote a hypothesis as a class.  We discussed how to set up the experiment and collect …

Read More about Rust Lab

I decided to follow up our glow stick demonstration with an effervescent tablet lab. This, sadly, did not go that well.  I assumed that my students would be able to design their own experiments.  My groups tried to do this, but most groups didn’t pay attention to what data they would need to collect.  My …

Read More about Effervescent Tablet Lab

This glow sticks reaction rate lab was one of my favorite physical science lessons of the year! To get my students thinking about the impact of temperature on reaction rate, I decided to do a demonstration with glow sticks.  It turned into one of the most enjoyable lessons of my teaching career! Here’s what my …

Read More about Glow Sticks Reaction Rate Lab

To wrap up my physical science students’ “I can take accurate measurements” skill, I decided to use the “Mini Metric Olympics” Activity from AIMS.  The original activity was published in Math + Science: A Solution. This book is available to check out from the Internet Archive’s Online Lending Library for free for an hour at …

Read More about Mini Metric Olympics Activity

My physical science students really enjoyed this Hit the Target Lab.  It’s my first time teaching physical science, and I’m learning so much every day.  When I typed up this mini-lab sheet, I thought we would be able to calculate the error and percent error.  I didn’t think through this very well because my students …

Read More about Hit the Target Lab