Active learning ideas
Chemical Changes and Reactivity explores how metals react with water and acids, leading to the development of the reactivity series. Students learn about displacement reactions and the processes used to extract metals from their ores, such as reduction with carbon. The topic also introduces redox reactions in terms of oxygen loss and gain.
Activity 01
Groups test different metals (Mg, Zn, Fe, Cu) with water and dilute acid. They use their observations of 'fizzing' and temperature change to rank the metals from most to least reactive.
How is the reactivity series determined?
Activity 02
Students act as metal ions and atoms. A 'more reactive' student can 'displace' a 'less reactive' student from a pair, demonstrating how more reactive metals take the place of less reactive ones in compounds.
What happens during a displacement reaction?
Activity 03
Pairs are given a list of metals and their positions in the reactivity series. They must decide whether each should be extracted by electrolysis or reduction with carbon and explain why.
How are metals extracted from their ores?
Templates
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A few notes on teaching this unit
Watch Out for These Misconceptions
Students often think that all metals are found as pure elements in the ground.
Explain that most metals are found as compounds (ores) because they have reacted with oxygen or sulphur. Showing samples of real ores compared to pure metals helps students understand the need for chemical extraction.
Redox is often only understood as the gain or loss of oxygen.
While oxygen is the starting point, introduce the idea of electron transfer (OIL RIG). Using simple ion-electron equations in a collaborative sorting task helps students transition to this more advanced definition.
Methods used in this brief
Quantitative Chemistry
An introduction to the conservation of mass, relative formula mass, and the mole concept. Students will perform calculations to determine the amounts of substances in chemical reactions.
8 methodologies
Electrolysis
A study of how electricity is used to break down ionic compounds. Students will predict the products of electrolysis for molten and aqueous solutions.
8 methodologies