Topic: Chemistry in everyday life

Target group

High school / technical school student

Core curriculum

New core curriculum:

High school and technical high school. Chemistry – basic level:

III. Mastering practical activities. Student:

1) safely uses laboratory equipment and chemical reagents;
2) designs and conducts chemical experiments, records their results in various forms, formulates observations, conclusions and explanations;
3) puts forward hypotheses and proposes ways to verify them;
4) observes the principles of health and safety at work.

High school and technical high school. Chemistry – extended level:

III. Mastering practical activities. Pupil:

1) safely uses laboratory equipment and chemical reagents;
2) designs and conducts chemical experiments, records their results in various forms, formulates observations, conclusions and explanations;
3) uses elements of research methodology (defines the research problem, formulates hypotheses and proposes ways to verify them);
4) observes the principles of health and safety at work.

Old core curriculum:

High school and technical high school. Chemistry – basic level:

III. Mastering practical activities. Pupil:

1) safely use laboratory equipment and chemical reagents;
2) designs and conducts chemical experiments, registers their results in various forms, formulates observations, conclusions and explanations;
3) puts forward hypotheses and proposes ways to verify them;
4) adheres to the principles of health and safety at work.

General aim of education

The student discusses the role of chemistry in the modern world

Key competences

• communication in foreign languages;

• digital competence;

• learning to learn.

Criteria for success
The student will learn:

• safely perform experiments in a chemical laboratory;

• recognize interesting substances used in everyday life;

• determine the positive and negative effects of various substances on human health and the environment;

• assess the role of chemistry in the modern world.

Methods/techniques

• activating

  • pros and cons discussion.

• exposing

  • exposition.

• programmed

  • with computer;

  • with e‑textbook.

• practical

  • exercices concerned.

Forms of work

• individual activity;

• activity in pairs;

• activity in groups;

• collective activity.

Teaching aids

• e‑textbook;

• notebook and crayons/felt‑tip pens;

• interactive whiteboard, tablets/computers.

Lesson plan overview

Introduction

1. The teacher hands out Methodology Guide or green, yellow and red sheets of paper to the students to be used during the work based on a traffic light technique. He presents the aims of the lesson in the student's language on a multimedia presentation and discusses the criteria of success (aims of the lesson and success criteria can be send to students via e‑mail or posted on Facebook, so that students will be able to manage their portfolio).

2. The teacher together with the students determines the topic – based on the previously presented lesson aims – and then writes it on the interactive whiteboard/blackboard. Students write the topic in the notebook.

Realization

1. The teacher begins the lesson by saying: „Everything that surrounds us has something to do with chemistry. Organisms of people, animals and plants are unusual chemical laboratories. Man has almost all the time contact with various chemical substances and processes; at home, at school or at work, during leisure or travel. Chemistry plays a huge role in all branches of industry affecting the progress of civilization „.

2. The teacher divides the class into two groups and informs students that their task will be to discuss for and against. The topic of the discussion is: „The presence and role of chemistry in everyday life: benefits and risks.” One group prepares arguments that prove benefits, the other - arguments that prove risks. Teacher also provides guidance that opponents, when preparing for discussion, can use abstract or other sources online.

3. The teacher uses the text of the abstract for individual work or in pairs, according to the following steps: 1) a sketchy review of the text, 2) asking questions, 3) accurate reading, 4) a summary of individual parts of the text, 5) repeating the content or reading the entire text.

4. Before starting the discussion, the teacher sets out with the students the rules according to which it will be conducted. For example, do not interrupt the statements of other participants, you have to respect the time set for the statement, etc.

5. Pupils discuss, alternating between pros and cons. The teacher moderates the discussion. After the discussion, the teacher asks one or several students to summarize it. If necessary, it complements the information. Then he asks students to think about their position regarding the benefits and risks of chemistry in everyday life. Students can change a group if their opponents' arguments have convinced them.

6. The teacher informs the students that they will watch the show „Study of the reaction of perhydrol with potassium manganate (VII)”. He asks them to formulate a research question and hypotheses and record them in the observation journal. After the show, everyone together sets up observations and conclusions and notes them.

7. At the end of the lesson, the teacher asks students to do interactive exercises in abstract - individual work.

Summary

1. The teacher asks the students to finish the following sentences:

   • Today I learned ...

   • I understood that …

   • It surprised me …

   • I found out ...

   The teacher can use the interactive whiteboard in the abstract or instruct students to work with it

Homework

1. Listen to the abstract recording at home. Pay attention to pronunciation, accent and intonation. Learn to pronounce the words learned during the lesson.

2. Make at home a note from the lesson using the sketchnoting method.

The following terms and recordings will be used during this lesson

Terms

Texts and recordings

Chemistry in everyday life

Can mineral raw materials that we source from the Earth surprise us with something? The world as we know it would not exist without concrete, steel, aluminium, glass or plastics. You may have already heard about carbon, appearing in the form of a diamond or graphene, and if you do not, you will certainly learn about this element in a chemistry lesson. Many discoveries, without which we cannot imagine modern civilization, we owe to chemists. Have you ever heard about the method of breeding crystals of Jan Czochralski? Its discovery, as it often happens, happens by chance. Professor Czochralski mistakenly immersed the nib of his fountain pen in a crucible with molten tin and it turned out that a thin thread of crystallized metal hanging at the end of the nib was entirely a single crystal (single crystal). His idea, developed in 1916, is the oldest and until now the only known way to receive this type of material.

In the ancient times perfumes had a high price and made a great career. In the contemporary world, we meet countless fragrances. It is believed that the fragrances can have a strong impact on us, setting the right mood. Probably the aroma of coffee stimulates and removes fatigue, the smell of lemon and violet helps to concentrate, and the wood violet itself has a positive effect on the speed of learning. Aromatherapy is used in medicine, recently for example to support the processes of waking people from coma. Fragrances facilitate communication in the animal world. An example is bombykol – the first of the chemically described pheromones, secreted by female mulberry silkworm that attracts males from a distance of about 10 kilometres.

Contemporary pharmacy and modern cuisine are two areas that combines care of the health. Hippocrates, considered the father of medicine, said: Your food should be a medicine, and your medicine should be food. These words make us realize how important the influence of nutrition has on the quality of our lives. This applies not only to people struggling with obesity and such diseases such as phenylketonuria or diabetes, but also those who do not notice this dependence on a daily basis.

Chemicals play a huge role in agriculture. Pesticides help to destroy pests, weeds, insects, fungi, can act as a repellent or luring agent for animals, facilitate the removal of leaves, and help to dry them before harvesting and reducing excessive number of flowers in horticulture. In addition, the use of fertilizers supplies the soil with various macro- and microelements. Of course, all of these measures should be used by farmers in accordance with the given rules of dosing, preparation of solutions of a certain concentration and their mutual mixing.

By reading this e‑textbook, you will learn how chemists have contributed to the development of energy and transport over the years, obtaining increasingly efficient fuels, improving energy sources and materials used to build cars, planes or space ships. What will humanity do when fossil fuels run out? Will the solution be the use of gas from shale deposits or will the energy industry go in a completely different direction?

In many places our planet looks like a big landfill. We buy more and more often the goods that we use only for a short time. For example, food items in disposable packaging, as well as the content of our clothing closet, when trying to keep up with the ever‑changing fashion. We choose plastic products more often, which due to high competition on the market are more and more attractive to us, although they adversely affect the natural environment. Who wonders how much day‑to‑day waste is thrown away? What to do with this mountain of rubbish? These lie not only near large urban agglomerations – these often end up in seas and oceans. We have accumulated quite a lot in space as well.

• Chemistry is a science that focuses on the composition and structure of substances, their transformations and the conditions in which these occur.

• Chemistry is used in almost all aspects in life.