Students apply their understanding of physical and chemical properties of matter to explore chemical reactions, how substances react chemically in characteristic ways and how mass is conserved
Download the complete Physical Science – Chemical Reactions framework to customize for your own planning.
Standards
- MS-PS1-2. Analyze and interpret data on the properties of substances before and after the substances interact to determine if a chemical reaction has occurred.
- MS-PS1-5. Develop and use a model to describe how the total number of atoms does not change in a chemical reaction and thus mass is conserved.
- MS-PS1-6. Undertake a design project to construct, test, and modify a device that either releases or absorbs thermal energy during a chemical and/or physical process.
Essential questions and big ideas of the unit
- How can you identify substances?
- Each substance has characteristic physical and chemical properties (for any bulk quantity under given conditions) that can be used to identify it. (MS-PS1-2)
- What happens during a chemical reaction?
- Substances react chemically in characteristic ways. In a chemical process, the atoms that make up the original substances are regrouped into different particles and these new substances have different properties from those of the reactants. (MS-PS1-2),(MS-PS1-5)
- The total number of each type of atom is conserved, and thus the mass does not change. (MS-PS1-5)
- Some chemical reactions release energy, others absorb energy. (MS-PS1-6)
- A solution needs to be tested, and then modified on the basis of the test results, in order to improve it. (secondary to MS-PS1-6)
- Although one design may not perform the best across all tests, identifying the characteristics of the design that performed the best in each test can provide useful information for the redesign process—that is, some of the characteristics may be incorporated into the new design. (secondary to MS-PS1-6)
- The iterative process of testing the most promising solutions and modifying what is proposed on the basis of the test results leads to greater refinement and ultimately to an optimal solution. (secondary to MS-PS1-6)
Download the complete Physical Science – Chemical Reactions framework to customize for your own planning.