Welcome back!

Summer holidays are over and many of us have already been either teaching or planning units of work to teach very soon. Below is a list of some of my favourite tools and experiments I tested last year with a very good outcome. Hope it inspires you to try something new with your students.

Mystery Boxes

Student engagement through SeeSaw

Microscale precipitation reactions

Book of achievements for KS3 Science Club

Tests for cations and anions

I wish you great lessons!

Karolina

Electrolysis

I really like to teach my students how to use less reagents (click here to see my precipitation reactions worksheet). Microscale chemistry offers a great way to do so. While doing Teaching Practical Science: Chemistry course from the National STEM Learning Centre, I learnt an easy way to conduct electrolysis using less reagents. The set-up includes using a Petri dish:

Petri dish contains sodium chloride solution and universal indicator

Once the electricity is flowing through the circuit, the changes are easy to observe almost immediately:

The same set-up can be used to conduct electrolysis of copper (II) sulfate solution:

An alternative to the graphite electrodes are ordinary pencils sharpened at both ends. 

Click here to get the worksheet for this experiment.

I wish you great lessons!

Karolina

Microscale precipitation reactions

Students love doing experiments. However, they often tend to waste a lot of reagents. A good way of teaching them to be less wasteful is through microscale chemistry. Here is an example of the worksheet I designed to teach my students to be more conscious of the amounts of chemicals they are using:

 

In this experiment students conduct 5 precipitation reactions and use 2-3 drops of each reagent. The worksheet is laminated and a paper towel is used to clean up afterwards. Once prepared it will last a long time.

Click here to download the worksheet.

I wish you great lessons!

Karolina

Edexcel 6 marker chemistry questions

For some students 6 marker questions are a real nightmare and they tend to ignore them during exams. With a bit of regular practice it is easy to develop skills which will allow the pupils to tackle those questions. I went through 3 years of Edexcel Chemistry GCSE papers and put together a document with all the 6 marker questions. I referenced each paper so you can easily find the right mark scheme. These questions can be used as homework tasks, extension tasks and with the mark scheme for peer assessment. The document consists both foundation and higher questions.


Click here to download a set of 6 marker questions.

I wish you great lessons!

Karolina

Where to find free resources?

If you are working in a school which provides you with every single resource you ask for, you're in heaven! The reality is, however, that such schools are very rare to find. So, what to do when you want to inspire your students but you are struggling to get resources? Here are some of the places I came across over the years that can support you on your journey.

1. The Crunch Kit (Wellcome Trust)

If you are working in the UK you can get your hands on 2 different kits. These are tailored for  primary and secondary students. Each kit consists of superbly prepared experiments together with all the equipment you need to deliver it.


2. STEM Learning resources

This is a collection of various resources focused around STEM. You can easily find here materials suitable for your students. These can be used both in a classroom setting as well as in an after school club.

3. DIY experiments from STEM Newcastle

This is an amazing collection of experiments perfect for the use in a Science club. Instructions are clearly laid out with numerous pictures and drawings to aid understanding.

4. School Science list

Here you can find a list of 30+ websites which offer free resources.

5. TES resources

Times Educational Supplement is a goldmine for resources. You can find absolutely everything there from worksheets through lesson plans and power points and schemes of work. I started uploading my resources there as well so click here to see what´s available (more to come!).

I wish you great lessons!

Karolina

Separation techniques summary table

Both KS3 and KS4 students have to learn about different separation techniques. It's a great unit which allows a few hands-on practicals. Once the unit is done, I like to give my students a simple homework task which allows them to consolidate gained knowledge. It's a summary table which you can download directly from my TES profile (KS3 and KS4).

KS3 table includes filtration, evaporation, chromatography and simple distillation. I differentiated the table by including labelled diagrams for those students who are less able. For KS4 students, I also added decantation. I found this resource to be an effective tool for revision and at the same time it allows me to teach my students how to use tables for revision. Also, because the space in the table is restricted, they are forced to include only the most essential information and write in a note form which is a great exam technique.

I wish you great lessons!

Karolina