Year 10 students are currently busy preparing for next week’s exams and, as part of their Chemistry GCSE, Dr Aspey has been engaging his classes with innovative experiments to aid learning.
To start, in order to incorporate the HPL learning value of “collaboration”, pairs were asked to find out the conductivity of ionic bonds in solid salt (sodium chloride), solid salt with water and salt solution. The students were very interested to discover that charges cannot flow through solid salt, and that salt water was able to light up their bulbs! A fantastic way for our students to practise teamwork skills, as well as taking part in a memorable lesson that will ensure they remember that ionic charges can only flow through liquids!
Dr Aspey continued the theme of innovative learning in other Year 10 classes, but this time incorporating the HPL value of “creativity”, with students being asked to create giant ionic and covalent structures. Students were asked to identify the specific compounds and create sodium chloride using models; with a steady hand and practicing the HPL value of “open-mindedness”, students grew in confidence when creating their structures. The lesson was a huge success at building the Year 10 students’ understanding of how negative and positive ions are attracted to each other,
A brilliant way to reinforce understanding and ensure students will have a fantastic memory they can recollect in next week’s exams!
