Chem-mystery

  • This is an example of a lesson that could be taught with either one or two students. The topic is science with a focus on magnetism and density

I’m Professor (student’s name) and this is my colleague Professor (other student’s name) and before we get started we know you must be pretty thirsty – so here’s some delicious water (they pour some Obviously dark smelly vile contaminated water with dark oil into glasses for all to see)

What’s the matter? You don’t like the water? Well how about some freshly made lemonade? (They have a pitcher of clean water – cut up a lemon – squeeze the juice in the pitcher – pour in some sugar – mix it around and serve the kids some lemonade)

A little better huh? You’re pretty smart not to drink that dirty water – imagine what would happen if oil were to get into everybody’s drinking water – we’d have a real mess on our hands. It could look like this – (put up a picture of an oil spill on the smart board)

Professor (student’s name) and I want to explain why it is such a problem for oil to get into water. Notice when we put the lemon juice and sugar in the water and stirred it around we put three different ingredients together and they all came together –scientists would say they Dissolved –(they write the word Dissolved on the white board) But when we put oil in water (they have a big bowl of water and pour in oil) notice how the oil doesn’t dissolve – what does it do? (kids answer – it floats to the top)

Exactly – There are basically two reasons why this is so – one has to do with electromagnetism – a big word – (they write the word on the white board and draw a box around the word – magnet – they hand little magnets to the kids)

Notice that when you try to put the magnets together sometimes you can – and they stick to each other – but if you turn them around the other way you can’t – they go away from each other. Well this is exactly what happens on a molecular level with water and oil. Water and oil are made up of millions of molecules and the magnetic charge in the water molecules won’t stick to the magnetic charge in the oil molecules. (One of the students draws little molecules on the white board and depicts how the charges repel each other)

The other reason they don’t mix is that water is much heavier than oil – notice the oil is floating on top of the water – why do you think it does that? (If they don’t answer correctly) that’s because it is lighter than water – let’s watch what happens when we pour salt on the oil (they pour salt on the oil and it sinks to the bottom of the pitcher) Why do you think it sank – (the kids answer)

Oil spills are a major problem that are very hard to deal with – what do you think are some of the problems they can cause? – (kids answer) Many people have tried to come up with ways to deal with oil spills – you saw what happened when we put the salt on the oil – I’d like you to consider whether you think this might be a good way to fix oil spills? (kids consider the problem and offer their opinions – High School student teaches respond to their comments)

On behalf of Professor (students name) and myself I want to thank you for ideas and help with this big problem.