As part of our unit on energy in physical science, I had my students build Rube Goldberg machines. I never did figure out how to take really good pictures of their creations. 🙁 But, I want to post these pictures of what my students did come up with to remind me of how things …
Science
Want to make it easier to teach your students to create Bohr models of an atom? Check out how to use electron magnets to illustrate and teach this important skill. My sister gave me a set of colored, circular magnets for my classroom. I wasn’t exactly sure what I was going to use them for at …
This types of energy art project will get physical students thinking creatively as they review the different types of energy they have studied during their energy unit. Students must draw a picture that contains at least one example of each type of energy that we discussed in Physical Science. My students had to include the …
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 …
My physical science students are currently studying the different types of energy. One of their in-class assignments was to draw an energy flow diagram for a specific scenario. This mini-project was sort of thrown together at the last moment, so it has the potential to be so much better. It’s definitely on my list …
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 …
After my physical science students finished with their momentum quiz, I gave them the task of creating their own momentum problem. They had to pick a subject for their problem and determine an appropriate mass and velocity. Some students converted pounds to kilograms to find the mass. Others just did a google search to …
One of the reasons I adore my physical science class is that they love the posters I have hanging up in my classroom. Decorating my classroom makes my heart happy, and the fact that I have students who take the time to show appreciation for my hard work just makes my heart even happier. A …
I created this balancing equations worksheet to give my physical science students a bit more practice balancing chemical equations before our quiz. Free Download of Balancing Equations Worksheet
I created this stoichiometry practice page for my physical science students to complete and glue in their interactive notebooks. I designed this page of notes to give my students some much needed practice converting between grams, molecules, and moles. Free Download of Stoichiometry Practice – Converting Between Grams, Moles, and Molecules
We did a quick notebook page to summarize what we had learned about the effects of temperature and concentration on reaction rates from our experiments. We did the following experiments: Glow Sticks Lab, Effervescent Tablets Lab, Rust Lab, and Effect of Concentration on Reaction Rate Lab. Free Download of Reaction Rate Summary Notes
When we got back from Christmas Break, I realized that we still hadn’t done any labs to explore the effect of concentration on reaction rates. Frustrated from how our previous labs had gone, I decided to just do a whole-class demonstration so we could move on to the next skill. We worked together to create …
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 …
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 …
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 …
I created this types of systems foldable to summarize the different types of systems my students would be dealing with in physical science. I brought some props from home to help us wrap our mind around the different types of systems. The cooking pot without the lid was an example of an open system. The …
I created this predicting products of chemical reactions foldable for my physical science students to glue in their interactive notebooks. After we had learned about the different types of reactions, it meant we were ready to learn to predict the products of a reaction. I created a basketball review game to review predicting products that …
I created this classifying reactions foldable for my physical science students to give them some basic classifying reactions practice. In this foldable, students are given a chemical equation which they must then classify as synthesis, combusion, decomposition, single displacement, or double displacement. We did thirteen of these classifying reactions problems together. Free Download of Classifying …
I created this types of chemical reactions foldable for my physical science students to glue in their interactive notebooks. We took a tiny break from balancing chemical equations to classify chemical equations. I created this foldable to summarize the different types of reactions: In the future, I would put synthesis and combustion on the foldable …
I created this writing and balancing chemical equations foldable for my physical science students to complete and glue in their interactive notebooks. We completed this after our basic balancing equations foldable. After we had the hang of balancing chemical equations, I had them translate the equations from words to symbols and then balance them. Free …
I created this balancing equations foldable for my physical science classes. We began our chemical reactions unit in physical science by balancing chemical equations. When I took chemistry in high school, I ADORED balancing equations. Each problem was like a mini-puzzle. And, I love puzzles! I put a circle in front of each reactant …
I created this mole map as a reference for my students while studying chemistry. You could also call it a stoichiometry diagram, but mole map sounds so much cooler. My physical science students have found this grams/moles/particles flow chart to be super helpful when we are doing stoichiometry problems. If I was only a science …
The text for this molar mass foldable that I created for my physical science classes came directly from this file. Free Download of Molar Mass Foldable
We tested our new found stoichiometry skills by figuring out how many molecules we would consume if we drank from the school water fountain for 30 seconds. I had my students make predictions before we started. Their predictions turned out to be waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy off. Let’s just say the highest prediction was 1,000,000 molecules of water. …
This cut and paste dimensional analysis activity makes the perfect introduction to dimensional analysis. I used this with my chemistry students with great success. It is available on Teachers Pay Teachers from Teacher Friendly Chemistry. Students have a bank of conversion factors to choose from. They cut out the ones they need for each problem …