Teaching Units 1 and 2 Chemistry in 2009 Jennie Eggleston St Michael’s Grammar School
[email protected] Introduction This guide is based on my experiences and opinions. It contains ideas that I have used and examples of the ways I have organised my students and lessons while teaching Units 1 and 2 Chemistry. It is in no way intended to be prescriptive, however, I hope it may be useful to other teachers who are devising their own approach to teaching Chemistry, especially those who are doing so for the first time. I use the textbook Heinemann Chemistry 1 (Chem1), the Heinemann Chemistry 1 Student Workbook (SW1) and the Heinemann Chemistry 1 Teacher’s Resource and Assessment Book (TRAB1) and the page references throughout are for those books. Overview of the year Major emphases for Units 1 and 2 Chemistry: o Making Chemistry fun and interesting! o Covering the curriculum as specified in the VCAA study design (orange cover) o Helping students take responsibility for their own learning. o Preparing students for Year 12 Chemistry in terms of work practices/revision skills/exam skills Assessment: There are several end purposes for assessment carried out in Year 11. Apart from the first, they may be influenced by the school’s report formats. 1. Reporting to VCAA whether a student has satisfactorily completed each Unit - Gaining an ‘S’ for satisfactory completion of each unit, requires students to satisfactorily complete all school-based coursework, which together assess the outcomes for each area of study. Students are given a list of Outcome Questions which are questions from each chapter covered, and are due usually at the end of each week. If the majority of the questions are satisfactorily attempted, the student receives their S. 2. Communicating marks/grades in the Study –St Michael’s has an on-line reporting system whereby parents and students have access to marks and comments three times a semester via the School’s Intranet. Assessment Tasks are called Reportable Tasks, a copy of the format for Semester 1 is attached. 3. Communicating attitudes/work habits etc. – based on completion and thoroughness of homework, practical reports, work in class etc. I use my school laptop which I take to all classes to mark attendance, submission of chapter questions and completion of any other required work as well as any observations or comments I wished to record. Students receive an On-line comment on all this at every Reporting Period
NOTE: I always require students to complete a test at the end of each Area of Study, which may or amy not be a separate Reportable Task, however, I treat it primarily as formative and often refer to them as ‘learning experiences’ to help students hone their knowledge and understanding in preparation for the end of semester examination. Starting well In the first lesson or two of the year: o A highly visual presentation using PowerPoint etc. with photos giving the students an overview of what Chemistry is all about. The emphasis should be on raising interest, showing students the questions etc. that Chemistry seeks to probe and answer. What is Chemistry about?
So, What is Chemistry?
Composition
of Matter
Behaviour
of Matter
Interaction
of matter
Chemistry is relevant is salt dissolved in sea water? is aluminium flexible? Why do eggs help to prevent a cake from crumbling? Why is diamond harder than iron? How does combustion cause pollution?
Chemical Questions
How
What
Why
How do
are things made of? they react? How much will react? To what extent will they react? How fast do they react?
o A fun demonstration or two e.g. Colour of some transition metal compounds (TRAB1 p.19). The prime motivation for this is to engage and interest the students with some very brief introductory comments/discussion of what is being observed. o A diagnostic test: (attached) not graded but just given to establish what they’ve forgotten/never learnt in Year 10 and below o A practical activity: Particle theory of matter (SW1 p. 24). Students will have encountered particle theory in Years 7 to 10 Science and should be able to work through this independently. o Handouts of the weekly outline for the entire Unit. Examples of this for Units 1 and 2 are attached. o Copies of the Key skills and Key knowledge from the VCAA study design.
The weekly outline (examples for Unit 1 and 2 are attached) o A description of content to be covered each week with the relevant textbook chapter - This helps me to be confident all the content will be covered, is useful for students who are absent for any period of time and gives everybody at least a sense of a high level of organisation! Providing the textbook chapter can encourage keen students to pre-read for the week ahead. o Chapter questions to be completed each week – I specify a minimum and indicate students are welcome to complete more. Worked solutions to the Chapter questions are available on the School’s Intranet and students are to correct their own work using a different coloured pen and write a comment on themselves before submission on Friday. Marking them myself takes too long and students can find marking their own work useful if done properly. However, collecting the corrected questions is worthwhile as looking through them is quick and it can identify areas the whole class or individual students are struggling with. o The practical work planned for each week, often in a long lesson. (This is subject to change). Students are rarely required to write full practical reports, however, they are always required to answer questions thoroughly and write a relevant conclusion. The prac. and questions are always discussed in class. I also find that one of the most useful times for discussion of the prac. and associated theory is during the prac. when I can engage with small groups of students at a time. I will often get students to read over the prac. the night before. o The dates for major Reportable Tasks
Incorporating the workbook o Essential knowledge – these are the concise class notes. Students should read and highlight/annotate on at least a weekly basis. Students can also be taught alternative ways of making their own summary notes using sections of the Essential knowledge e.g. mind maps, concept maps, Venn diagrams etc. I put examples of each of these ways of note taking on the school Intranet. Keen students will use them. o Worksheets – I would use these predominantly in class as we are introducing and covering the content. Students could work on their own or in pairs to complete and then discuss as a class. o Practical activities – would be used during practical work for recording observations and answering questions directly. We would discuss all as a whole class. o Sample assessment tasks – the workbook can be used as a logbook for the Extended Experimental Investigation and Annotated Summary Report and collected at the end of each class during these periods. Students would collect and complete each lesson and then produce the final presentations from the information contained. All other sample tasks can be used as the information sheets as written because they do not give the ‘answers’ as such. Students still need to research/write/present their own piece of work.
A few other random thoughts o Demonstrations – I do as many as possible. There are so many excellent short demonstrations, especially in Unit 2 with solubility, indicators, acids and bases, gas behavior. Many are contained in the TRB1 that if organised before the class they may take only a few minutes during the lesson but can interest students so much and demonstrate a concept or question so much more clearly than a whole lesson of talking. o Quick Quizzes – I use quick quizzes to encourage revision. Usually they are marked and make up part of their Folio Reportable Task mark for each Reporting Period. o Errors notebook – I used this for both Years 11 & 12 to try and get students to reflect on their own learning and revision habits and to help them avoid repeating the same types of mistakes. After each test and the exam (in Yr 11) and while doing the practice exams (Yr 12) I asked students to note down the type of error they had made for each question lost marks on. o
Other Resources: Videos/DVDs The School has several videos (mainly purchased from VEA) which cover aspects of the course. “Elements Organised-The Periodic Table”, while made in the 80’s, is an excellent introduction to the elements and periodicity, and the kids love seeing the caesium in water demo! I often refer back to segments of the video in later parts of the course. Bonding: the driest part of the course no doubt! We purchased the Chemical Bonding – Inner Forces series of videos with accompanying worksheet booklets: the 4 videos cover Metallic, ionic, Intramolecular and Intermolecular Bonding and are shown at the end of each relevant section of the course. The worksheets are most useful! The Mole-when to teach it!!! The new course introduced the mole concept much earlier than in the old course and some students found it difficult so early on in Year 11. While some schools have opted to finish all the bonding topics and then tackle the mole, we have persisted with the Chapter order for the past two years and beyond.
Nanotechnology: The St Michael’s exam week for Year 11 ends with a week of Term 2 still to go and this is when we teach nanotechnology (hence it is not included in the exam). As part of our Science Faculty PD we did some extensive internet research and came up with some useful/interesting sites. We also had an incursion using …. From La Trobe Uni who ran a 1.5-2 hr theory and practical session with each class on diffraction method of measuring hair diameter and producing a gold colloid.
Other Resources: Neap Diagnostic Tests by Topic, Neap Smartstudy Revision and Exam Guide for Unit1, also for Unit 2; Checkpoints for Units 1 and 2.
Chemistry Weekly Outline - Unit 1 2009 The Chapter Outcome Questions are to be completed by Friday of the following week. You are to check your answers via the School’s Intranet (s drive) and then submit your corrected work with a written general comment and any questions. Wk
Content
1
AREA OF STUDY 1 – THE PERIODIC TABLE • Elements • Periodic table, compounds
1
Minimum Chapter Outcome Questions • 15, 17, 20, 23
2
• • •
Development of atomic theory Nuclear atom Electronic configuration
2
•
19, 20, 21, 22, 23a,c, 24, 26, 29, ace, 30, 31, 34
3
• •
The modern periodic table Periodic properties
3
•
16, 18, 19
4
• •
Trends in properties Compounds
3
•
20, 22, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29
SW1 p. 28 Period 3 elements
5
• •
Masses of particles The mole
4
•
21, 22, 23, 24
TRB1 p. 26 Mole simulation and applications
6
• •
Molar mass Empirical and molecular formulas
4
•
7
AREA OF STUDY 2 – MATERIALS • Metals
5
•
26aceg, 27, 28, 29, 31, 32, 36, 37, 38, 40, 32, 45, 48, 50, 51 10, 14, 15, 17, 20, 21, 23
8
•
6
•
17, 19, 21
SW1 p. 31 Chemical composition of a compound SW1 p. 72 Testing materials TRB1 p. 33 Growing metal crystals SW1 p. 82 Solubility
Ionic compounds – properties & model
Text chat
Practical work
Reportable Tasks
TRB1 p. 13 Changes in chemical reactions
SW1 p. 81 Flame colours of selected metals (an experiment for the summary report)
SW1 p. 34 Periodic variation of properties – analysis of 2nd hand data
9
• •
Electron transfer diagrams Chemical formulas
6
•
22, 23, 25, 26, 27, 29
10
• • •
Covalent molecular substances Shapes of molecules Polarity of molecules
7
•
18, 19, 20, 21, 22
11
• •
Forces between molecules Covalent lattices
7
12
• • •
Carbon Hydrocarbons Naming hydrocarbons
8
•
18, 21, 22, 23, 24
1314
• •
Properties of alkenes and alkenes Polymers
8
•
25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 32, 34, 40
15 16 1718 19
• • •
An overview of bonding General Exam Revision Unit 3 mid year exams/GAT, Unit 1 exams Surfaces Nano particles (Unit 1 Exam returned)
9
• • •
9
•
• • •
23, 24, 25, 26, 29, 31, 34, 36
of compounds in water (an experiment for the summary report) SW1 p. 84 Conductivity of common materials (an experiment for the summary report) SW1 p. 75 Making molecular models
TRB1 p. 41 Comparing the physical properties of different covalent lattices SW1 p. 78 Investigating hydrocarbons
SW1 p. 81 A summary report of three practical activities
TRB1 p. 50 Making ghost buster slime TRB1 p. 53 Making an Eastover
9, 10, 11, 12
•
13, 14, 16, 17
TRB1 p. 43 Buck balls, annotates and other allotropes of carbon
SW1 p. 86 Nanotechnology and new materials – a poster presentation
Chemistry Weekly Outline - Unit 2 2009 Wk 1
Content
Text chpt
Minimum Chapter Outcome Questions • 13, 14, 19, 23, 24, 31, 32, 34, 35
AREA OF STUDY 1 – WATER • The water cycle • Properties of water • Water as a solvent • Measuring solubility • Concentration of solutions
10
11
•
14. 15, 17, 19, 22ace, 23ace, 26, 28, 32, 35, 37
3
• •
Precipitation reactions Ionic equations
12
•
6, 8, 10, 11, 12
4
•
Maintaining water quality
12
• •
13, 14, 15, 17
5
• •
Introducing Acids & bases Reactions involving acids and bases
13
•
2, 5, 8, 9
6
• • • •
Brønsted - Lowry definition Acid and base strength pH scale Stoichiometry
14
•
15, 16, 17, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 31, 32
15
•
14, 15, 17, 19, 23, 24, 28, 30, 32, 33,
8
• •
Excess reactants Volumetric analysis
15
•
35, 36, 39, 40, 41, 43, 45
9
• • •
Oxidation and reduction Redox reactions Oxidation numbers
16
•
22, 25, 27, 29, 30, 31, 32
2
7
Practical work Selections from TRB1 p. 61 Properties of water TRB1 p. 70 Concentrations of solutions SW1 p. 115 Precipitation reactions TRB1 p. 77 Purification of polluted water TRB1 p. 80 reactions of hydrochloric acid TRB1 p. 82 Amphiprotic substances in water SW1 pp. 119 Products of a decomposition reaction TRB1 p. 90 Determination of the concentration of a hydrochloric acid sol SW1 p. 121 Corrosion
Reportable Tasks
10
11
12
13
14
1516 Cup week 17
18 19
• • • •
Galvanic cells The electrochemical series Corrosion Green Chemistry
•
16
36, 38, 40, 42, 43, 46, 47, 50 •
17
3, 4, 5
TRB1 p. 98 Electrochemical cells and corrosion TRB1 p. 102 Investigating galvanic cells
AREA OF STUDY 2 – THE ATMOSPHERE • The atmosphere • Essential gases • Acid rain • Depletion of the ozone layer • Smog • Green house effect • Laboratory and industrial preparation of a gas of significance to the quality of the atmosphere – carbon dioxide
18
•
11, 12, 14, 16, 20
19
•
12, 14, 15, 21, 22, 24
20
•
13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20
• •
21
•
33, 34, 36,
SW1 p. 157 Volumepressure relationships of gases
21
•
40, 41, 43, 45, 47, 48, 49, 51, 57, 59, 61, 64, 66, 67
SW1 p. 160 Molar volume of hydrogen
Kinetic molecular theory Pressure, volume relationships
• Gas laws • General gas equation • Reacting quantities EXAM REVISION • EXAMS • Return exams, introduce Unit 3
• Set work from Ch 1 & 2 Unit 3 text to do in summer holidays
SW1 p. 132 Going Green – a PowerPoint presentation of the principles of green chemistry
SW1 p. 155 Preparation and properties of oxygen SW1 p. 163 Greenhouse and global warming – a response to stimulus material SW1 p. 164 Preparation and properties of carbon dioxide – an extended experimental investigation
