Teacher's guide for Balancing Equations

by Leslie Lowery

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Introduction

Use this Topic Hotlist to help 10 - 12 Science students learn about Balancing Equations. The goal is to get students openly exploring a topic.

Overview

Main Topic:	Balancing Equations
Subtopics:	The Meaning of Chemical Equations, The Law of Conservation of Mass, Balancing Chemical Equations,
Grade Level:	10 - 12
Subject(s):	Science
Learning Goal:	openly exploring a topic

Vision and Reality

If the learning goal were achieved in the most ideal of perfect worlds it would look something like:

This hotlist will give the students an oportubity to explore the nature of chemical equations without the restraints of paper, pencil, and a structured classroom. These sites give lots of opportunities to balance chemical equations.

However, what I anticipate probably looks more like:

Based on the Vision set for this activity, the actual reality is more likely to be that some students learn in different ways and the computer may be a medium for them to learn balancing equations.

The What - If Inventory

To give the activity its best chance at helping students learn, I assembled this list of possible resources:

You must have a computer lab to accomodate all of your students. It will be your choice whether groups or individual work is preferred.

Internet access is a must on all computers. A printer would need to be handy for students to print out the balancing equations worksheet.

Standards

SI-H-A3 using technology and mathematics to improve investigations and communications; PS-H-D3 writing balanced equations to represent a variety of chemical reactions (acid/base, oxidation/reduction, etc.); PS-H-D4 analyzing the factors that affect the rate and equilibrium of a chemical reaction; PS-H-D5 applying the law of conservation of matter to chemical reactions

Conclusion

This hotlist should have given students some experience balancing equations and reviewing some basic knowledge of chemical equations using the Internet. Some students would have learned the topic better through technolgy lesson, while some would still prefer the classroom setting. Whatever the case, your comments are greatly appreciated.

created by Leslie Lowery email: llowery@nls.k12.la.us http://www.web-and-flow.com/members/llowery/topic1/hotlist.htm