Mystery Powders Level: 3rd Grade Time Frame: Approximately 1 Quarter  Description: This unit represents the students’ first systematic approach to the study of “chemistry,” that is, the study of the properties and changes of matter.

Overview Activity List Learning Objectives Standards Resources

Activity List Introduction to Mystery Powders Unit Observing Mystery Powders A & B Observing Mystery Powders C, D & E Water Test Vinegar Test Iodine Test Heat Test Mystery Powders Review Powder Mixtures Investigation My Mystery Powder

Learning Objectives

Students Will Practice:

• Collecting data for investigations using scientific process skills including observing.
• Constructing charts and visualizations to display data.
• Using data to produce reasonable explanations.
• Reporting and displaying the results of group investigations.

Students Will Know and Observe:

• Substances have a variety of physical properties that can be detected using the senses (i.e.; through careful observation).
• The three “states of matter” are solid, liquid, and gas.
• When dry substances are mixed with liquids, different things can happen, with different liquids.
• Sometimes a substance may “dissolve” in another substance. This means that one substance breaks into parts that are too small to see.
• When two things are mixed, the result is sometimes a chemical change, that is, the formation of a new type of matter. Possible signs of a chemical change include color change, bubbling, and temperature change.
• Heating a substance may cause a change in the substance.
• Heating may cause either a physical or a chemical change.
• If a physical change occurs, a substance is changed and has some different properties but it is still the same substance.
• Melting is an example of a physical change—the properties of the substance change, but a new substance is not formed.
• Observations of the physical characteristics of a substance—and how it interacts with other substances and with heat—can provide clues about the identity of a substance.
• Materials that look alike—or are alike in some other way—may or may not react in the same way to testing.

Standards

Illinois State Standards: Late Elementary- As a result of their schooling, students will be able to:

11A. Know and apply the concepts, principles, and processes of scientific inquiry.

• Collect data for investigations using scientific process skills including observing, estimating, and measuring.
• Construct charts and visualizations to display data.
• Use data to produce reasonable explanations.
• Report and display the results of individual and group investigations.

12C. Know and apply concepts that describe properties of matter and energy and the interactions between them.

• Compare large-scale properties of matter.
• Describe and demonstrate the properties of solids, liquids and gases.

National Science Education Standards- As a result of activities in grades K-4, students should develop an understanding of the following fundamental concepts and principles:

• Objects have many observable properties, including size, weight, shape, color, temperature, and the ability to react with other substances.
• Substances react chemically in characteristic ways with other substances to form new substances with different characteristic properties.

Benchmarks for Science Literacy- By the end of 5th grade, students should know:

• Things can be done to materials to change their properties, but not all materials will respond in the same way to what is done to them.
• Heating and cooling cause changes in the properties of materials.
• Materials may be composed of parts that are too small to see without magnification.
• When a new material is made by combining two or more materials, it has properties that are different from the original materials.

Resources

Champaign Community Unit School District #4 * Mellon Administrative Center
703 South New Street * Champaign, IL 61820 * 217.351.3800