Frequently Asked Questions
Question: How do you manage all the equipment and chemicals?
Answer: First of all, get enough rubber tubs (cheap tubs will do) for each group, and one demo tub. For a class of 24-30, 6-8 tubs are enough.
Separate the supplies into each tub.
List for each tub:
Balance
Filter stand
3 cups for the balance
Post-it notes
Gram cubes in a baggie (get for the measurement kit or order from a science math catalog or base ten block kit).
Question: What are the unit specific concept words that students should understand?
Answer: The Foss Mixtures and Solution book has word bank words at the end of each lesson. They are listed here for your convenience.
• Mixture
• Solution
• Dissolve
• Property
• Evaporation
• Crystal
• Solute
• Solvent
• Saturated
• Solubility
• Concentration
• Dilute
• Volume
• Chemical reaction
• Precipitate
• Change
• Reactants
• Filtration
Question: How do you manage the handouts and work sheets?
Answer: Put the response and worksheets together in a packet at the beginning of the unit, except for Handout #10, which should be handed out at the time of the investigation. As the students are working on each lesson, you can either have them tear out the sheets to turn in or have them turn in their packets at the end of each week for feedback. At the end of the unit, they can turn in the entire packet for a final grade. This saves you from remembering to copy the handouts for each lesson. Also, include the instructions for each job in the student groups. These instructions are described on page 8 of the overview section of the teacher's manual. You can also add the procedures for each lesson in the packet. See the next question.
Question: How do you manage giving instructions to the class, and make sure the students understand the instructions (to save you from repeating the instructions several times)?
Answer: Each lesson, under the Guiding section, has a series of steps for each experiment. Make a procedure handout for the steps the students need to do during the experiment. This can be added to the packet, or given as a separate handout the day of the experiment. This is very helpful because the students have instructions right in front of them in a step-by-step format. It is assumed that all materials are in the students' tubs unless they are told to go and get something from a station.
It is also helpful to make an overhead of the instructions to point to. That way, you can review the instructions as a group before each experiment, and then the students have something to refer to as they are working.
This helps model procedure writing for the students. In later lessons, students have to plan and write their own procedures before doing the experiments.
Instruction writing takes a little time as you first use a kit. But, it saves a lot of time and frustration later on, and you only have to create these instructions once.
Example Instructions
Lesson 1. Making and Separating Mixtures
• Reporter labels 3 cups with post-its G, P, and S.
• Getter 1 takes the labeled cups to the chemical location, gets several mls of each substance, and puts them in the corresponding cup.
• The group should observe and record findings about the appearance of each substance on the Separating Mixtures page.
• After sharing your findings, and when told, Getter 2 gets 50ml of water in the syringe and brings it back to the group and adds it to the gravel cup.
• The cup is then stirred and observed. The results are recorded in part 2 of the worksheet.
• Repeat steps 4 and 5 for the other 2 cups.
• Reporter labels a second set of empty cups G, P, and S.
8. Go on to part 3 of the worksheet and follow the instructions.