Using New AACT Resources to Help Teach Equilibrium

By Kim Duncan on March 20, 2020

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 Kinetics unit. We will now focus on lessons and other activities for an Equilibrium unit.

Since our original post in April 2018 and follow-up post in March 2019, we have added a few more resources that you might consider trying with your students. Additionally, we have created a unit plan that uses many of our resources to help you teach a unit on Equilibrium.

If you teach equilibrium after teaching kinetics and thermochemistry, the following resources can help students make important connections between the topics.

  • Students understand the connections between the equilibrium constant (K) and the reaction quotient (Q) as well as how they determine the favorability of a reaction in the lesson plan, Making Connections in Kinetics, Equilibrium, and Thermochemistry. Additionally students will be able to determine if a reaction is kinetically favored or thermodynamically favored. This lesson includes alignment with the AP Chemistry Learning Objectives.
  • In the Kinetics and Equilibrium lab, students investigate the reaction of the hydrogen sulfite ion (HSO3-) and the iodate ion (IO3-) to determine the effect that changing concentration and temperature has on the reaction rate. This lesson includes alignment with the AP Chemistry Learning Objectives and NGSS performance expectations.

We hope that these activities can help you to reinforce several of the topics covered in a unit about equilibrium. 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.