LESSON PLAN 2

Aim: To group the students in 2 or 3-member laboratory teams; to explain the main properties of acids and alkalis

Teaching objectives

Content

• Properties of acids and alkalis

Communication

• Adjectives of personality
• Reading a scientific text
• Writing a script for an oral presentation
• Use of ‘While this is…, this other is…’ to make comparisons

Cognition

• Evaluating self and other person’s aptitudes
• Analysing the main ideas of a text
• Creating a power-point presentation

Culture

• Harry Potter (and friends) as a model of working team
• Uses of acids and alkalis around the world

Outcomes

At the end of the lesson, students will be able to

• know the main characteristics of acids and alkalis
• understand new scientific vocabulary
• read a scientific text
• extract the main ideas of a scientific text
• summarise a scientific text
• know how to make a script for an oral presentation
• use adjectives of personality
• recognise the importance of working as a team in science
• develop a sense of responsibility when working in a laboratory
• recognise the importance of discussion in a team in science
• know how to behave in a discussion

Tasks planned and timing

• A power-point explaining the importance of working in a team in science will be shown. While showing this power-point, the teacher will ask questions to the students, who will give short answers (e.g. ‘What’s the job of this man?’) (5 min)
• A handout about discussion techniques will be passed around. Students will have to match each cartoon with its correct comment. This will be an individual task. This task will show them that a proper discussion encourages the birth of new ideas in science (10 min)
• Plenary: correction of the previous exercise and discussion about it (5 min)
• Students will be provided with a card to form a two or three-member working team. A model will be provided through a power-point (Harry Potter), and they will be asked to think about what kind of personality they have and about their contribution to their team (10 min)
• A text explaining the properties of acids and alkalis will be provided. One member of the team will have the text explaining the properties of acids, while the other member of the team will have the text explaining the properties of alkalis. The students will be asked to read their texts and to memorise as many things as they can (10 min)
• Students will have to answer a questionnaire about the texts they have read. They will have to work as a team and to ask each other questions, as some questions refer to each other’s text (10 min)
• Students will have to organise the main ideas of both texts in a comparison diagram (10 min)
• Homework: students will be asked to prepare a short power-point. They will have to think about its content and its script. This will be part of a role-play: students will be told that they are part of an international committee which is in charge of informing others about the different uses and problems that acids and alkalis present in USA, Brazil, Nigeria, Russia, China, Germany and Catalonia. Each team of students will be given a country, and they will have to do a little research on the internet. This power-point will be assessed by their peers in lesson 5.

Resources

• For the power-point: a computer, a screen and a projector
• For the formation of teams: a card for each team to be filled in with each member’s data
• For the discussion activity: a handout with cartoons and comments to match
• For the text reading activity: a handout with the text and the tasks to be done for each student
• For the homework: one photocopy for each student

Assessment

• The power-point presentation will be suitably marked in lesson 5

Evaluation