05 spring - holly and katie
endothermic/ exothermic reactions
With LBC we added the use of the ice cube worksheet as a “pre-lab” to our overall lesson study. This helped to establish the structure and flow of the lesson, as well as to teach the students to do the diagrams they would need for later in the lesson study. Watching the physics group struggle with the “point of view” worksheet we realized the complexity of what we were asking students to do. It suddenly hit us that spontaneous endothermic are really tricky to understand.
We spent time coming up with chemicals for the students to use that would be safe, easy to use, and easy to determine as endo or exothermic. We also spent a lot of time contemplating physical changes vs. chemical reactions. We also struggled with keeping track of where the energy was coming and going from because of the need for chemical energy in the making and breaking of bonds. The concept that energy could be used to do something other than raise the temperature ,or change the phase, is really difficult for students to understand. Even as a chemistry teacher we need to slow down and reason through the energy flow, so if it’s difficult for us, we have to be particularly careful in explaining to our students what’s happening and where the energy is going. It’s completely counterintuitive…. How can we arrive at that conclusion then from an inquiry based lab? We’re so glad that we are not teaching it yet, but we’re still wondering what we can do to make it better for when we do teach it, and how to improve our ideas. How practical is this when we have no data to use for justification as to why/how to change the lesson? The summer meeting will require a lot of work.documents and resources
- Point of View Worksheet - LBC curricula
(c) 2009 ronnster/oharanator productions
