Using the information she had already given them, they had to sort the cards into three piles (elements, mixtures and compounds). Miss Mene organized the students into groups of four, giving each group a set of cards. It took quite a long time to make the cards so she persuaded her colleague who taught the next level of junior secondary to help her, and offered to share the resource with her. Each card had a diagram that represented an element, a mixture or a compound. She used Resource 2 to make 12 sets of cards out of some old food packets. She decided to use a card-sorting activity that would give the students an opportunity to discuss their ideas. Miss Mene had taught her Form 9 class the definitions of ‘element’, ‘mixture’ and ‘compound’, but wanted to make sure that they really understood these key ideas in chemistry. Encourage them to explain their answers to the questions. Organise the activity so that the students have the opportunity to talk to each other as they work out the answers. This activity will help students understand these definitions and remember them. In Activity 1 we represent atoms as circles, and atoms of different elements by different coloured circles. That is more difficult to measure! You can use the ideas in this unit whenever you introduce new words or scientific terms. You will be pleased if they can remember and recite the definitions, but you need to be sure that they understand what the words really mean. Students need time to think about new words and to understand them. They will probably have heard of iron, carbon and sulfur, but there may be others.Ĭase study 1 shows how one teacher helped her students to understand the definitions of elements, compounds and mixtures. To find out about the students’ ideas, you could ask them if they know what an element is and if they know the names of any of the common elements. ( Resource 1 shows the periodic table with all the elements). In this topic we will start by talking about the chemical elements and how they are the building blocks from which all other substances are made. Often their ideas are not the same as the scientific ideas we want them to understand. You may be surprised about what they have learnt from newspapers, adults, peers, older brothers and sisters and observations. So a good way to start teaching any topic is to find out what your students already know about the topic. Students have their own ideas about a topic and an effective teacher takes account of these ideas when teaching.
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