Water and Solutions

Activities

• Have students do “Water and It’s Solutions” (doc) crossword puzzle.
• “The Wonder of Water” (pdf) Teacher’s Guide has many multidisciplinary activities for middle school students.
• The World of Chemistry video series has a half-hour video about “Water” that can be played with Windows Media Player after a free sign-up by the teacher. The video can also be ordered.
• The “Properties of Solutions” (pdf) worksheet has background information as well as questions and problems for the students.
• Mr Guch provides these solutions worksheets at chemfiesta.com: “Dilutions Worksheet” (pdf), “Molarity Calculations (pdf), “Molarity Practice Problems” (pdf), “Molecular Polarity” (pdf), “Concentration Worksheet” (doc), “Solutions Worksheet” (doc), and “Making Solutions Practice” (pdf).
• Have students do this “Water and It’s Solutions” (doc) wordsearch with answers (doc).
• Do the “Water” (pdf) crossword puzzle with answers.
• Or try this “Solutions” (pdf) crossword puzzle with answers.

Labs

• Demonstrate freezing point depression in this “We All Scream for Ice Cream” (doc) lab.
• Flinn Scientific, Inc.’s “Quick Freeze” (pdf) is a simple demonstration of freezing point depression using club soda.
• The “Changing the Freezing Point of Water with Salt” (doc) lab is self-explanatory.
• “Expanding on Ice” demonstrates how ice takes up more space than water.
• “The Rate of Solubility” (doc) lab can be adapted for any grade level.
• The “Concentration vs. Solubility” (doc) lab enables students to distinguish between concentration and solubility and to tell which solution is more concentrated.
• Try this “Testing Water Hardness” (doc) lab
• The “Polar and Nonpolar Solvents” microscale lab explores the solubility of seven solutes in two different solvents.
• This “Surface Tension of Water” (doc) lab has 3 separate activities.
• “The Solubility of Gases in Liquids” (doc) lab has students explore the relationship between solubility and the temperature and pressure of gases.
• This “Rate of Solution Demonstration” shows how temperature and surface area affect the speed in which sugar dissolves in water.
• Do the “We All Scream for Ice Cream” (doc) lab to demonstrate freezing point depression.
• Rick Smierciak provides this lab on “Colligative Properties Using Freezing-Point Depression to Find Molecular Weight” (doc).
• Do this “Analysis of Water Laboratory” (pdf) with teacher guide (pdf).
• The “How many drops of H20 can fit on a penny?” (pdf) lab is a good demonstration of cohesion and surface tension.
• Do this “Solubility Curves” lab.
• “The Cat’s Meow” can be used as a demonstration of the unique properties of a milk solution or students can experiment with different types of milk in the “Kaleidoscope of Milk” (doc) lab from Mary Fuson.
• In S. G. Falk’s “Molecule Polarity and Solubility” (doc) Lab, students use a molecular model building set to predict whether two substances will form a solution based on the polarity of the molecules.
• In Jen Solari’s “Experimenting with Solutions-Designing an Experiment” (doc) lab, students conduct research to find the three factors that affect the rate at which a solute dissolves in a solvent and design an experiment to test the effect of one of these factors on the rate at which salt or sugar crystals dissolve in water.

Links

• A boiling-point elevation and freezing-point depression experiment: http://www.chem.iastate.edu/group/Greenbowe/. . . .
• Illustrated tutorial on physical properties of water: http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/8a.html 
• A slide show on properties of solutions: http://www.public.asu.edu/~jpbirk/CHM-113_BLB/Chpt13/ 
• A tutorial on solutions with some math problems on solutions at the end: http://www.chemtutor.com/solution.htm 
• A plethora of demonstrations and experiments on surface phenonema and colloids: http://www.funsci.com/fun3_en/exper2/exper2.htm 
• Good photos showing the Tyndall effect: http://www.silver-lightning.com/tyndall/ 
• A heat of solution calculator: http://www.sciencegeek.net/Shockwave/HeatofSolution.htm 
• An animation of salt dissolving in water: http://www.chem.iastate.edu/group/Greenbowe/. . .
• Solubility tutorial including formulas for solving concentration problems: http://www.chemistry.nmsu.edu/studntres/chem116/notes/solutions.html 
• Good graphics of water and its properties: http://www.uni.edu/~iowawet/H2OProperties.html 
• Explains the Tyndall effect: http://silver-lightning.com/tyndall/