Is Chemistry Required in High School in Montana?
Of the 20 required credits to graduate high school set by the Montana Office of Public Instruction, students must earn 2 credits in Science. However, individual schools and districts have the final say in the topics covered in the science courses. Montana has adopted a modified version of the NGSS model.
The Montana Office of Public Instruction worked in conjunction with Washington, Idaho, and Oregon in the Northwest Earth and Space Science Pipeline (NESSP) grant that was sponsored by NASA. Course 1 is the High School Integrated Physics and Chemistry Course where students are given a scenario to investigate that integrates multiple scientific concepts into one course. For example, students in Grade 9 chemistry topics include concepts such as:
Disappearing Bodies
How can a Yellowstone hot spring dissolve a person who falls into the scalding lakes of acid?
What’s in the water?
- Yellowstone is a supervolcano
- Surface events are dependent on sub-surface activity
- Sulfur in rocks can react with hot water to produce sulfuric acid
- Solfolubus in the hot springs digest sulfur to produce sulfuric acid
- Surface water percolates below the surface where it is heated by mantle plume where it rises back up as super-heated fluids
- The sulfuric acid in the hot springs is mainly produced by sulfolobus bacteria (extremophiles)
What’s in the Body and Flip Flops?
- Substances are made out of molecules that are made out of atoms bonded together
- Compare and contrast the basic molecular structure of fats, proteins, calcium hydroxyapatite, and polyurethane
- Molecules are made out of atoms that are bonded together
- Similar atoms are bonded together differently to form different molecules
Atoms and the periodic table
- Atoms are made of Protons, Neutrons, and Electrons.
- The Periodic Table is the cornerstone of Chemistry. The position of elements in the Periodic Table connects to how atoms act, interact, and bond.
- How protons attract electrons and how electrons interact with other atoms is the foundation for understanding how elements and molecules interact
Valence electrons and bonding
- Atoms want to complete a full octet of electrons. They can do this by losing or gaining electrons in their outermost(valence) orbital. How many electrons they want to lose or gain depends on the number of electrons in their valence orbital.
- Atoms bond by either sharing electrons or giving/taking electrons from one another. The number of electrons shared or exchanged can be predicted by the number of valence electrons.
- Atomic bonds can be Nonpolar, Polar Covalent, or Ionic. The difference in electronegativity between each atom in a bond determines the type of bond. The electro-negativity of an atom is a measure of how strongly it attracts electrons
- Bonding electrons determine how elements interact with one another.
- The number of bonding electrons and the number of elements bonded in a molecule can be predicted from the number of valence electrons of each atom in the molecule.
- Differences in the bonds in the materials of flip flops and a human body made a difference in how those materials interact with acidic water.
Physical vs. Chemical Changes
- Physical changes preserve the type of substance while chemical changes change the type of substance.
- How a substance dissolves depends on the type of compounds involved
- Melting is just the absorption of energy.
- How and why different substances dissolve, melt, or chemically react are important in understanding why most of a human body can interact in the acidic hot springs while flip flops do not.
Solubility and Intermolecular Attraction Lab
- Like Dissolves Like. This explains why ionic and Polar Covalent compounds are soluble in polar solvents like water. Nonpolar compounds are soluble in nonpolar solvents like oil. Different components are soluble in different solvents. Fats cannot be dissolved in water, but salts and calcium phosphate can.
Melting vs. Dissolving vs. Reacting
- Sulfuric Acid will interact with salt, egg, bone meal, but not with fat or flip flops.
- The electro-negativity of the main bonds of molecules can help predict how matter will interact (dissolve vs. react).
- Sulfuric Acid reactions explain the rapid breakdown of Colin Scott’s body.
- The heat of the hot spring sped up the process of reacting and dissolving.
- Students’ predictions applies their conceptual understanding of reactions to a real experiment. Revising their explanations based on evidence allows them to revise their explanation or verify their understanding.
What happened to the Body and Flip Flops? Redux Performance Task
- Bond type of central bonds for main substances of the body and flip flops.
- Conceptual understanding at the atomic level of the specific interactions of matter for the phenomenon.
- Application of observations and learning directly to the phenomenon.
Conservation of Mass Lab and Analysis
- Collect quantitative data to mathematically show that matter (atoms) are conserved during a chemical reaction.
- The body did not “disappear,” rather it dissolved, melted, or chemically reacted and all the atoms are still present in the pool or as part of gas in the air around the pool.
Giant Sequoias
What are the chemical processes that occur as a giant sequoia tree grows?
Photosynthesis
Common elements/molecules; Energy transfer
- Students learn the inputs and outputs of photosynthesis
- Begin to think about how energy is transferred/used
- Trees require CO 2, H 2 0, and sunlight to carry out photosynthesis. The outputs of photosynthesis are glucose (C 6 H 12 O 6 ) and O 2.
- DCI LS1.C- Organization of Matter and Energy Flow in Organisms
- PE HS-LS1-5- Use a model to illustrate how photosynthesis transforms light energy into stored chemical energy
- DCI PS3.B Conservation of Energy and Energy Transfer: Energy cannot be created or destroyed, but it can be transported from one place to another and transferred between systems
- Students learn about glucose and how a tree uses glucose
- Students begin to consider the concept of conservation of energy looks into the key product of photosynthesis, and how a tree uses it
Law of Conservation of Matter
- As part of this lab investigation analysis, students are asked to use molecular models to model the conservation of mass/matter
- As part of this lab investigation analysis, students are asked to design an investigation that would demonstrate conservation of mass in the context of the photosynthesis reaction.
- Notes/lecture on the relationship between moles & mass
- Option for stoichiometry
POGIL-Predicting the Products and Reactants
- Students use claim, evidence, and reasoning to justify that matter, and therefore mass, is conserved during a chemical reaction.
- Students understand that matter (and mass) are conserved in a chemical reaction such as photosynthesis
- Explores in more detail how a tree adds mass as it grows (i.e. the molecular processes trees and plants undergo during photosynthesis)
- DCI PS1.B- Chemical Reactions: The fact that atoms are conserved, together with knowledge of the chemical properties of the elements involved, can be used to describe and predict chemical reactions.
- PE HS-PS1- 7- Use mathematical representations to support the claim that atoms, and therefore mass, are conserved during a chemical reaction.
- Students investigate the concept of conservation of energy via energy transfer
- Where did the light energy in photosynthesis go? Energy cannot be created or destroyed, but it can be transported from one place to another and transferred between systems
- Students begin to investigate what happens to the light energy in the process of photosynthesis
- Students begin to understand that light energy from the sun is transformed into stored chemical energy in glucose.
- DCI PS3.B Conservation of Energy and Energy Transfer: Uncontrolled systems always evolve toward more stable states—that is, toward more uniform energy distribution (e.g., water flows downhill, objects hotter than their surrounding environment cooldown).
- Students investigate the bond energy in glucose develop a model to illustrate that the radiant energy from the sun is converted to chemical energy within the mass of a tree
- The light energy a tree absorbs during photosynthesis is converted to chemical energy in the bonds of glucose
- The mass of a tree is predominantly made up of glucose
- DCI PS1.B- Chemical Reactions: The fact that atoms are conserved, together with knowledge of the chemical properties of the elements involved, can be used to describe and predict chemical reactions.
- PE HS-PS1- 7- Use mathematical representations to support the claim that atoms, and therefore mass, are conserved during a chemical reaction.
- DCI PS3.D: Energy in Chemical Processes Although energy cannot be destroyed, it can be converted to less useful forms—for example, to thermal energy in the surrounding environment.
- DCI PS1.A- Structure and Properties of Matter
- PE HS-PS1-4 Develop a model to illustrate that the release or absorption of energy from a chemical reaction system depends upon the changes in total bond energy.
- Students investigate what happens to the rate of photosynthesis when there is more water, carbon dioxide, or sunlight?
- Changing the temperature or concentration of the reacting particles will change the rate at which a reaction occurs
- What factors have the biggest influence on the rate of photosynthesis?
- How does manipulating the amount of CO 2, H 2 O, or light energy will affect the rate of glucose production in photosynthesis?
- Apply scientific principles and evidence to provide an explanation about the effects of changing the temperature or concentration of the reacting particles on the rate at which a reaction occurs.
Building a Biolite
Studying the principles of combustion
What is Fire?
- Diagram a combustion reaction at the molecular level
- Understanding of Fire - able to see the movement of molecules in the transformation of chemical energy to thermal energy
- Exit ticket: combustion equations, the transformation of energy
Heat vs. Temp. vs. Thermal Energy
- Heat/Temp/Thermal Energy puzzle
- Ice Block activity
- Differentiation between heat, temperature, and thermal energy
- Heat differences, and rate of heat transfer with different materials.
- Puzzle of heat vs. temperature vs. specific heat
- Class discussion on temperature vs heat transfer
Combustion
- Calorimetry/ combustion lab that quantitatively measures the efficiency of various fuels
- Woosh Bottle Demo
- Quantitative calculations of energy transformations
- Conservation of energy and flow of energy in systems and between systems (stored chemical energy to thermal, light, etc.)
- Diagramming of energy efficiency and “loss” of energy
- Source of energy and energy transformation in the stove
- Oxygen, fuel, heat balance - efficiency and what “smokeless” means
- Showing energy is merely transferred or transformed and conserved within and between systems
- Energy efficiency relates to the usable energy from the bonds in the substances (chemical energy)
- Lab report on calorimetry and combustion efficiency with quantitative and qualitative analysis of energy transfer and transformation data
- Activity Analysis and Explanation with Modeling and claim-evidence-reasoning (defining system vs environment/surroundings)
Thermoelectric Effect
- Thermoelectric demo with sense-making
- Drinking Bird
- Temperature change due to the material
- Understand the thermoelectric effect
- Shows how different temperatures create a flow of electrons/energy
- Modeling of Thermoelectric Effect
Battery Activity
- Design, build, revise energy charging system
- Understand energy flow through a system, explicitly the 1st law of thermodynamics
- Specifying a change in conditions will produce increased amounts of products at equilibrium
- Correlates the chemical energy in the battery with that of the wood burnt in the stove
- Shows needed threshold of electrical potential needed to charge a battery• Venn Diagram comparing and contrasting experimental battery with battery in BioLite campstove
Does Montana Award Credit for Passing the AP Chemistry Exam?
Montana does not require post-secondary institutions to award credit for AP courses, however, many have their own policies in effect to award credit for AP scores above 3.