5th Grade Curriculum:
Our first step was to create a curriculum for a fifth grade science class. We researched the California education requirements and based our project off of those. We decided that focusing on the major elements of the Chemistry required to be learned was more important than going 100% in depth to each topic.
Since fifth graders don't have the longest attention spans, my group decided that a few short, simple, and fun videos would achieve our purpose. Ronan did our voice overs and tried to keep it fun and engaging. Sarah and I made the videos themselves. We used a software called VideoScribe. This allowed us to make these "hand drawn" videos. Kyle helped with the script.
Overall, this part of the project was enjoyable. Making the videos was a challenge but I'm glad I had the opportunity to learn ho to use that software. If anyone wants a video like this... text me!
Since fifth graders don't have the longest attention spans, my group decided that a few short, simple, and fun videos would achieve our purpose. Ronan did our voice overs and tried to keep it fun and engaging. Sarah and I made the videos themselves. We used a software called VideoScribe. This allowed us to make these "hand drawn" videos. Kyle helped with the script.
Overall, this part of the project was enjoyable. Making the videos was a challenge but I'm glad I had the opportunity to learn ho to use that software. If anyone wants a video like this... text me!
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Chemical Dominoes
The process:
The chemical reactions featured in our project:
1. Blowing up a balloon; vinegar and baking soda
This reaction occurs in two steps. First, there is a double displacement reaction in which acetic acid in vinegar reacts with sodium bicarbonate to form sodium acetate and carbonic acid. Then, carbonic acid is unstable and undergoes a decomposition reaction to produce Carbon dioxide gas. This gas is collected in a balloon attached to a beaker. This blows up the balloon and pushes a lever up to then roll a marble down and knock over dominoes to then lead the next reaction.
#2 : Forming a Precipitate - Potassium Iodide & Lead Nitrate
2KI + Pb(NO3)2 ---> 2KNO3 + PbI
In our next reaction, we poured Potassium Iodide from the small plastic cup into a beaker full of Lead Nitrate. This is another double displacement reaction. It forms the yellow precipitate (Lead Iodide.) Once the beaker got even more full, it got heavier and weighed down thee scale. The other side of the scale moved then, colliding with a second series of dominoes. These dominoes set in motion our final reaction.
#3 : Elephant Toothpaste - Hydrogen Peroxide & Yeast
2H2O2 + Enzyme ---> 2H2O + O2
For our final decomposition reaction, we decomposed Hydrogen Peroxide with the help of an enzyme (yeast) to form water and oxygen. We added soap to the mixture which trapped the oxygen gas, forming bubbles. This is what causes the foamy mess!
Reflection:
This project definitely had its ups and downs. A big part of it was trial and error - figuring out what did not work and fixing it. Consequently, with a lot of things going wrong, there was some frustration within our group. We kept changing our project up, modifying steps, and tweaking reactions to ensure everything went smoothly. It took us weeks to finalize our series of reactions, and even then they did not all run perfectly every time. However, this project was also rewarding. Personally, I became very frustrated with our project. I wanted it to be perfect and every time it failed, I became more upset. Learning how to be patient and understanding was a major part of this project. I needed to learn how to accept that failure would happen and that others shouldn't be blamed when it does.