LET’S DO IT!
Science Is A Verb!
Elementary
Part 2
ISBN 978-1-847003-58-4
Contents
Lab Title
INTRODUCTION
What Happens When Steel Rusts?
Students know that during chemical reactions the atoms in the reactants
rearrange to form products with different properties.
How do atoms form molecules?
Students know all matter is made of atoms, which may combine to form
molecules.
What do metals have in common?
Students know metals have properties in common, such as high electrical
and thermal conductivity. Some metals, such as aluminum (Al), iron (Fe),
nickel (Ni), copper (Cu), silver (Ag), and gold (Au), are pure elements; others,
such as steel and brass, are composed of a combination of elemental metals.
How Would You Organize Atoms?
Students know that each element is made of one kind of atom and that the
elements are organized in the periodic table by their chemical properties.
How are Atoms and Molecules Organized?
Students know scientists have developed instruments that can create discrete
images of atoms and molecules that show that the atoms and molecules
often occur in well-ordered arrays.
How can you separate mixtures?
Students know differences in chemical and physical properties of substances
are used to separate mixtures and identify compounds.
What are some common properties of matter?
Students know properties of solid, liquid, and gaseous substances, such as
sugar (C6H12O6), water (H2O), helium (He), oxygen (O2), nitrogen (N2), and
carbon dioxide (CO2).
What are the most common atoms?
Students know living organisms and most materials are composed of just a
few elements.
What are the properties of salt?
Students know the common properties of salts, such as sodium chloride
(NaCl).
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Lab Title
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How Do materials Move Through Plants?
Students know many multicellular organisms have specialized structures to
support the transport of materials.
Students know how sugar, water, and minerals are transported in a vascular
plant.
How does Exercise Effect the Amount of Carbon
Dioxide We Exhale?
Students know how blood circulates through the heart chambers, lungs, and
body and how carbon dioxide (CO2) and oxygen (O2) are exchanged in the
lungs and tissues.
How Does Your Digestive System Work?
Students know the sequential steps of digestion and the roles of teeth and
the mouth, esophagus, stomach, small intestine, large intestine, and colon in
the function of the digestive system.
How Do Our Kidneys Filter Out Impurities?
Students know the role of the kidney in removing cellular waste from blood
and converting it into urine, which is stored in the bladder.
How Do We Know Photosynthesis is Happening?
Students know plants use carbon dioxide (CO2) and energy from sunlight to
build molecules of sugar and release oxygen.
What is a Waste Product In Respiration?
Students know plant and animal cells break down sugar to obtain energy, a
process resulting in carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (respiration).
How does water evaporate and form precipitation?
Students know when liquid water evaporates, it turns into water vapor in the
air and can reappear as a liquid when cooled or as a solid if cooled below the
freezing point of water.
Students know water vapor in the air moves from one place to another and
can form fog or clouds, which are tiny droplets of water or ice, and can fall to
Earth as rain, hail, sleet, or snow.
How is Water Recycled?
Students know most of Earth’s water is present as salt water in the oceans,
which cover most of Earth’s surface.
Students know the influence that the ocean has on the weather and the role
that the water cycle plays in weather patterns.
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Lab Title
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How much fresh water is on Earth?
Students know that the amount of fresh water located in rivers, lakes,
underground sources, and glaciers is limited and that its availability can be
extended by recycling and decreasing the use of water.
Students know most of Earth’s water is present as salt water in the oceans,
which cover most of Earth’s surface.
Where do we get our water?
Students know the origin of the water used by their local communities.
What are the different Spheres of Earth?
Students know uneven heating of Earth causes air movements (convection
currents).
How Does Weather Affect the Environment?
Students know the influence that the ocean has on the weather and the role
that the water cycle plays in weather patterns.
What Do I Do in Severe Weather?
Students know the causes and effects of different types of severe weather.
How Do We Measure The Weather?
Students know the causes and effects of different types of severe weather.
Students know how to use weather maps and data to predict local weather
and know that weather forecasts depend on many variables.
Students know that the Earth’s atmosphere exerts a pressure that decreases
with distance above Earth’s surface and that at any point it exerts this
pressure equally in all directions.
Why Do Stars Look Small?
Students know the Sun, an average star, is the central and largest body in the
solar system and is composed primarily of hydrogen and helium.
What’s In A Galaxy?
Students know the solar system includes the planet Earth, the Moon, the
Sun, seven other planets and their satellites, and smaller objects, such as
asteroids and comets.
What is the Role of Gravity?
Students know the path of a planet around the Sun is due to the gravitational
attraction between the Sun and the planet.
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Introduction to the lab manual:
This lab manual provides structure for teachers who wish to engage students in hands-on
interactive learning but also provides support for teachers who are more comfortable with inquiry
based learning. If you are a teacher who is taking their first “dive” into hands-on Science, the
background material is designed to provide enough structure to help support the organization of
the lab and its materials. Most of the materials are commonly found in local supermarkets and
department stores at a nominal cost. A few materials, like scales and hand microscopes can be
found on-line. The lab sheets can be given to students so they follow step by step, or they can be
told a general structure to follow.
The critical portion of any lab is to have a thorough discussion of the results and their thinking
after the experiment is completed. It is suggested that you take as much time as the experiment
to have this discussion with students. The real learning occurs not from the hands-on experiment,
but from a deep discussion of the experiment, while making connections to the concept they are
learning. For this reason, it is suggested that the students do the experiment FIRST, and then have
the students learn the concepts. They will have a better understanding of the concept if they first
conduct an experiment, gain the experience, and then discuss a new concept.
Even without a strong Science background, get into the habit of asking questions. The process of
asking questions and being inquisitive will generate more excitement for students and will engage
them in a deeper way of learning Science. “I don’t know” is as important to learning as having all
the answers. Together you can learn Science and discover the major ideas that Scientists’ research.
If you are an experienced teacher, the Teacher Guided Questions to Inquiry are designed to provide
prompts for students. These questions are not intended to be assessment questions, but ones that
will engage students in the general direction of the benchmark. The teacher may select one or two,
but not all of them, to have students start on an open inquiry approach to learning. The students
will engage in their own experiment, create their own procedures, and make conclusions from their
data. For this reason, there are no answers to those questions. They are open ended and can be
used to formulate interesting experiments for advanced students. The slight variation in some of the
questions in each of the labs is designed to provide a sufficient number of prompts at various levels
of Blooms Taxonomy to engage students.
Throughout the year, encourage questioning, student dialogue, and the scientific process. There is
no one exact scientific method as is often suggested. The process of learning about the world and
universe, drawing conclusions from facts, and building these facts into strong scientific theories is
the work of Science. Science is always growing, stretching, and expanding its knowledge base. It is
about challenging well supported ideas to discover weakness. This exactly what students should be
encouraged to do! And in the end, Science is not something to study, it is something to do!
Science is a VERB!
Science Core Curriculum
Physical Sciences
What Happens When Steel Rusts?
Description: Students will examine how the effect of water and oxygen on steel
wool, causes it to rust, and identify how the characteristics of the starting material are
different from the ending material.
Student Materials (per group):
• Steel wool
• 2 Cups
• 2 zipped plastic Bags
• Water
• Salt
• Spoon
Background and Misconceptions:
A chemical change results in a new compound or substance with different properties
as compared to the starting substances. A cake goes through a chemical change as
heat is applied to the ingredients causing them to combine in different ways to form a
substance that is different from the original starting products. While it is truly difficult
to determine if a chemical reaction has occurred, there are various clues that can be
used to determine if a chemical reaction is a possibility.
Keep in mind that these clues in themselves are not a guarantee that a chemical
reaction has occurred! The only true way is to determine if a new substance has been
formed. The following are some characteristics to examine in this experiment to
determine if a new material or substance has formed:
• Color – a color change or new colors formed.
• Temperature – if there is an increase or decrease in temperature while the substance
is changing.
• Gas – bubbles may be given off during the change.
• Precipitate – a new solid is formed that collects in a liquid.
Teacher Edition
Physical Sciences
Physical Sciences
In this experiment, the steel wool changes when it is exposed to water and oxygen. The
chemical reaction produces rust. The rust is a reddish-orange compound that forms
in the back and is produced from the combination of the steel wool and the water and
oxygen in the air. Amazingly, completely submerging steel wool in a cup of water
will prevent the formation of rust because oxygen is an important ingredient in the
formation of rust. (If you elect to try this as a demonstration, use water that has sat
for a few days. A freshly poured cup of water will have dissolved oxygen in the water
that will result in the formation of rust. After a few days, the dissolved oxygen will
evaporate from the water).
The salt will aid in the formation of rust. Steel structures on the coast will rust faster
than those that are in fresh water environments.
During this reaction the steel wool may feel warm. This is a result of the chemical
reaction that is taking place as the steel wool reacts with water and oxygen to form the
rust.
Teacher Guided Questions to Inquiry:
Use these questions to get the students started on their own inquiry!
.
2.
3.
.
How do you know a new substance has formed?
What is rust?
How is cooking similar to rotting plants?
What is evidence that a new substance has formed?
Additional Hints:
• After the steel wool is placed in the bags, have students feel them after 30 minutes.
There may be a noticeable temperature difference.
• Most steel wool has an oily substance protecting it from rusting.
Physical Sciences
Teacher Edition
Physical Sciences
What Happens When Steel Rusts?
TEACHER ANSWER KEY
Description: Substances such as steel can change into other substances
with different properties. In this experiment, you are going to examine how
some things can change into different substances.
Materials: Steel wool
2 zipped plastic Bags
Salt
2 Cups
Water
Spoon
Procedures:
1. Observe the steel wool. Write down how it looks, what it feels like, and
what colors you see.
Looks dark/black or gray. Is rough.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Pour water into the cups so the cups are half full.
In one cup, pour a teaspoon of salt and stir.
Dip the steel wool into each cup. Allow to sit for 1 minute.
Write “Water Only” on one zipped plastic bag. Write “Salt Water” on a
second zipped plastic bag.
6. Remove the steel wool from each cup and place it into the bags, making
sure you put the steel wool into the correct bags.
7. Seal and allow to sit for 1 day.
8. Examine the bags after 1 day.
Teacher Edition
Physical Sciences
Physical Sciences
What Happens When Steel Rusts?
Steel wool in water only
Steel wool in salt water
What does it There is some orange and
look like?
red.
There is some orange and
red, but likely there will be
more.
How is it
different?
There are additional colors.
There are additional colors
What colors Orange and red, and some
do you see? of the gray from the steel
wool.
Orange and red and some of
the gray from the steel wool,
but there may be more here.
What other The bag may be warm.
observations
can you
make?
This bag may have more
deterioration, rusting than the
water only.
Physical Sciences
Teacher Edition
Physical Sciences
What Happens When Steel Rusts?
Questions
1. How do you know that a new substance was formed in the bag?
There are new colors present. Also, some of the steel wool seemed to
disappear and change.
2. When you bake a cake, how do you know that the ingredients have
changed?
The new cake has a different look and feel as compared to the original
ingredients.
3. Another change that can occur is when plants die and rot. How do you
know that a change is occurring?
The new substances that are formed are different than the starting plants.
Also, smells may be given off. This all means that the starting ingredients
had different characteristics than the ending ingredients.
Teacher Edition
Physical Sciences