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GREEN CHEMISTRY AND SUSTAINABLE SCIENCE: A Green Approach to Sustainable STEM in K-12 - Chapter 5: Curriculum Unit

GREEN CHEMISTRY AND SUSTAINABLE SCIENCE: A Green Approach to Sustainable STEM in K-12 - Chapter 5: Curriculum Unit
Contributors
Retired K-12 Educator | Beyond Benign, Inc.
HS Chemistry and Physics Teacher | Catskill Senior High School
Middle School Science Teacher | Boulder Valley School District - Casey Middle School
Teacher | Bretton Woods Elementary School
Certified Lead Teacher/Adjunct Lecturer | W.H. Maxwell High School
Founder | STEM Learning Design LLC
Beyond Benign, Inc.
Beyond Benign, Inc.
Summary
This chapter is meant to illustrate what a unit-level learning experience can look like as students engage in concepts related to structure and chemical reactions. While the prior chapters provided a set of lessons around a specific topic at different grade spans, this middle school unit illustrates how students can engage in a variety of investigations and modeling to explore the molecular nature of substances and how they interact, with explicit considerations of green chemistry principles. Through this unit, we intend for students to see the relevance of the activities and green chemistry principles to their lives and apply their learning to authentic situations.

Chapter 5 Contains:
1. Introduction
2. Elephant Toothpaste Learning Expedition (Middle School; Erin)
a. The Phenomenon
b. Lesson 1
c. Lesson 2
d. Lesson 3
e. Lesson 4
f. Summative Assessment

Keywords

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Moderation state
Published
Object Type
Activities/Technology (e.g., in-class activities, online games, hands-on activities/manipulatives, outreach, virtual tools, etc.)
Lesson summaries
Books
Audience
Middle School
Published on
Green Chemistry Principles
Less Hazardous Chemical Syntheses
Safer Solvents and Auxiliaries
Design for Degradation
Safer Chemistry for Accident Prevention
NGSS Standards, if applicable
Middle
MS-PS1-1
MS-PS1-2
MS-PS1-5
Learning Goals/Student Objectives
The storyline or essential question that structures this unit is:
• How can we make something new that was not there before?

Each lesson then asks student to consider a smaller scale question that contributes to the unit:
• How can we decide if what goes into a system is the same as what comes out of a system?
• What happens when potatoes are placed in mystery liquid?
• How can scale help us understand puzzling things?
• What happens at the particle level during a chemical reaction?

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