Co-operative learning in science

[julie S]

Hey it's Jules,

 

I am a secondary science school science teacher and love making my classes exciting and interesting. Boring, mundane teachers quite upset me as I believe it imerative students learn to love all aspects of science.

Has anyone got any good ideas for group or co-operative learning activities relating to chemistry - eg bonding, cations, anions, acids and bases - pretty basic stuff (ideas other than the usal lab experiemnts would be hugely appreciated).

Cheers,

Jules

Edited August 3, 2008 by julie S

[YT2095]

one game that is fun is to guess the element (or bond type or reagent etc...), by making out a card for each and list of words you`r not allowed to use when describing the element (or bond type etc...) to your lab partner.

 

so if your card says "Hydrochloric acid" you wouldn`t be able to say that or perhaps "Chlorine" or "atomic number 17" but you might be able to say Halogen and describe it`s properties and bond type with an element that has no neutrons for instance.

 

you can make this game as easy or as hard as you like too.

[Psycho]

For acid and bases you could put a pack of mints in a bottle of coke and watch it explode that is pretty simple, however the kids may then destroy the school!

[Sayonara]

You could also give your students sub-atomic roles and let them "act out" elements and molecules.

[julie S]

Thank you guys for your ideas. I like the idea of role plays and the card game which I didn't think of! Mints in coke - well all kids love that one - that is sure to work all the time to keep up excitment and motivation.

Cheers, and take care,

Jules

[Katatonic]

Um, I can't remember how into the actual structures of bonds you get in that grade, if at all, but you could try a game like this:

 

Break the kids into groups and give each group a different element consisting of the same number of atoms as there are group members. Have the kids try and arrange themselves in the ball & stick structure of the molecule. If they get it right, give them a new element to try, and if they don't, draw the line structure on the board to review it's structure, then move on.

 

This of course would only work for some easy ones like water and carbon dioxide etc. anything that wouldn't require a z-axis haha.

 

Oh! Or a red-rover type game when talking about electron transfer in redox reactions! That would be pretty fun.

[CaptainPanic]

Another card game:

One student gets a number of acids on a card. Other students gets a number of bases on a card (none of them strong, or perhaps 1 strong one). Then student 1 plays a card, which is countered by student 2.

 

The one student with the acids owns all protons, and must keep as many. The other with the bases must try to steal them.

 

Example:

student 1 has 3 cards: H3PO4, NH4+ and HCO3-

student 2 has 3 cards: IO-, CN-, SO4(2-)

 

student 1 plays the NH4+ card, which gives student 2 the choice to win it by playing his/her IO- card (NH4+ + IO- -> NH3 + HIO) , or to hold on to that, and lose the round by playing for example the SO4(2-) (NH4+ + SO4(2-) --> no change).

 

It's similar to a 2-person card game where you just win 2 cards when you have the highest of the 2.

 

Same thing might work for redox-half reactions... stealing electrons. One electron keeper, one electron thief.

 

You can also come up with an "expansion set" as any good game maker does. Start off with just a few cards, but expanding this fast as students will need but a few minutes to get used to the first cards...

 

To make it more unpredictable, as with other card games, students draw only a number of playing cards from a larger stack.

I am not sure if the equilibrium constant should be mentioned on the card... at first it might be best, but students learn fast.