Unit Overview and Materials List

Chemistry. It s not confined to a laboratory filled with test tubes—or a lecture at a university. Chemistry is the study of the world around us, of chemicals and how they interact. Everything is made of chemicals, from the pencils we write with to the oceans where we swim. We are made of chemicals. When we eat or breathe, chemical reactions take place Inside us. 

Many students have been amazed to realize that chemicals are, in fact, all around us. And, they are surprised that chemistry is a topic they can explore in their own classroom. To study chemistry is to make sense of the world. In a way, it s like solving a mystery. 

The unit begins with a pre-unit assessment lesson in which students share what they think about chemicals and what they would like to learn and gain from their first experience observing and describing an unknown material. In Lesson 2, students encounter the mystery of their five unknown solids (sugar, alum, talc, baking soda, and cornstarch), and assemble the tools they will 

In the next eight lessons, students perform a series of tests to help them determine some physical and chemical properties of their five unknown solids. In Lesson 3. students begin to investigate and record the physical properties of the five unknowns, first using their unaided senses, and then adding tools to extend and enhance their senses. 

By adding water to the unknowns in Lessons 4 to 6, students learn that mixing one substance with another can reveal new properties. They also use filtration and evaporation to separate the combined substances and find that evaporation may lead to the formation of crystals. 

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