ICT in Education
The lesson: Flash animations to teach chemistry
The lesson
The Flash animations are used to teach the class as a whole and cover the topics the teacher feels need further revision. They last approximately 30 minutes. The animations are set up with frequent pauses to allow Mr Watson to ‘talk through’ each topic and respond to pupils’ questions as they arise.
The animations are flexible enough to allow for sections to be repeated if necessary so pupils have more time to absorb the information being presented.
The various sections of the animation are:
- Introduction - A link is made between the macroscopic view of a metal (magnesium ribbon) and the atmonic level by zooming in to show the network of magnesium atoms.
- Atomic structure - The use of atomic number and mass number to determine number and position of protons, neutrons and electrons is revised.
- Electron arrangement - Shells and orbitals are gradually filled to show the electron arrangement of magnesium.
- Stable octet - The stability of the noble gases and the ‘desire’ of metal atoms to lose electrons is revised.
- Reaction with acid - The reaction between magnesium atoms and hydrogen ions is shown alongside a video of a piece of magnesium ribbon in a test-tube of acid (again, to link the macroscopic with the atomic level).
- Reaction details - The reaction is looked at from the point of view of the magnesium atoms, the hydrogen ions and the chloride ions (spectator ions). Ion-electron equations are derived along with the overall ionic equation with and without spectator ions.
- Once the animations have been shown the teacher is able to progress onto looking at other reactions of metals, identify the oxidation and reduction parts and write ion-electron equations.