Summary

In this project, students will work in groups to create a comic strip that illustrates understanding of the law of conservation of mass.

Grade Level

High School or Middle School

Objectives

By the end of this project, students should be able to
• State, explain, and demonstrate the law of conservation of mass.
• Understand the meaning of reactant and product.
• Classify products by the appropriate state of matter in a reaction.
• Identify indicators of chemical change in a chemical reaction.

Chemistry Topics

This project supports students’ understanding of
• Chemical Reactions
• Law of Conservation of Mass
• Chemical Change
• States of Matter

Time

Teacher Preparation: 10 minutes
Lesson: 55 minutes

Materials

• Blank 8-frame template
• Color pencils/markers/crayons
• Storyline graphic organizer
• List of story starters (optional)
• Examples of acceptable student work
• Assessment rubric

Safety

• No specific safety precautions need to be observed for this activity.

Teacher Notes

• This demonstration provides the opportunity to introduce students the following vocabulary words and topics:
  • Law of Conservation of Mass: mass is neither created nor destroyed.
  • Chemical reaction: A process where atoms of the reactant(s) will rearrange themselves to create a new arrangement of atoms, called the product(s).
  • Reactant: A substance or substances present at the start of the reaction.
  • Product: A resulting substance or substances formed by a chemical reaction.
  • Chemical Change: Any change that result in the formation of a new substance or substances.
  • Indicators of Chemical Change or Chemical Reaction:
    1-Formation of gas
    2-Change of color
    3-Formation of a precipitate;
    Formation of heat and light.
    *Please note that these indicators do not always designate that a chemical change occurred, as there are many instances of these occurring without a resulting chemical change.
• The types of matter identified in chemical reactions are solids, liquids, gases and aqueous solutions. Liquids and aqueous solutions differ in that liquids are pure substances in the liquid form, whereas aqueous is a substance dissolved in water.
• Students should be given a list of scenarios on which to base their comic strip. Each comic strip should show three physical and/or chemical changes along the reactants journey. Examples of scenarios include:
  
  • A group of carbon atoms begin by aiding in grilling food at a barbecue and some end up in an expensive race car
  • Silicon from the beach ends up in Bill Gates personal home office computer
  • Water used to quench a fire in New York ends up as acid rain in Europe
• Assign this as an individual project so that each student can get intimately involved with researching the changes matter undergoes.
• Teacher needs to be sure to deconstruct the rubric and show various examples of student comic strips (collected over time) prior to the students beginning their work.
• Each phase of the process should be reviewed and approved by the teacher at intermediate deadlines prior to final product submission (ex. concept summary paragraph, storyline graphic organizer, rough sketch). Peer assessments could also be valuable at these intermediate deadlines.
• Opportunities for extension:
  • Peer- and self-assessment forms can be used to allow students to view their work and the work of a peer with constructive criticism prior to final product submission.
  • Student work can be placed in a competition and judged by other teachers, students, etc.
  • Student work can be assembled as a class comic book