AACT Kinetics Unit Plan Updated + Resources to Use
By AACT on April 16, 2024
As chemistry teachers plan activities for their students, AACT will highlight resources from our high school library that help to reinforce topics in different units throughout the school year. Our last news post highlighted resources from our high school library that support a Phase Changes and Heat Transfer unit. We will now focus on lessons and other activities to be used in a Kinetics unit.
We have added a few resources related to this topic to the high school library, which are highlighted below. We have also updated our unit plan to help you teach a unit on Kinetics.
Complete the catalytic converters activity from the Clean Air Chemistry resource. During the activity, students work in groups using Lego models to illustrate how a catalytic converter works. They model the natural breakdown of C2H4 and the breakdown of C2H4 with catalysts palladium, platinum, and rhodium to compare what breaks down air pollution molecules fastest.
Part of kinetics is understanding how to change the rate of reaction and understanding how collision theory causes the change. Students can explore these concepts in the How Fast Can We Remove Tough Stains? Activity. Using various mixtures of OxiClean solutions, blue food coloring, and water, students conduct several tests and draw conclusions based on their results.
We hope that this new lesson plan and unit plan can help you to reinforce several of the topics covered in a unit on kinetics. Most of these lessons were made possible by great teachers who shared their own resources. We need your help to keep the collection growing. Do you have a great demonstration, activity, or lesson related to this topic that you would like to share with the community? Please send it along for consideration.