The Science of King Charles III Crown Coronation Geology/ Chemistry Lesson

In this lesson, specifically made to celebrate the Coronation of King Charles III, learners use the scientific method to experiment the cooling rates of crystals and their sizes and relate this back to the formation of the gemstones on the Crown.

Aimed at 11-18 with a Geology/ chemistry focus on making crystals.

This lesson comes with:
• A PowerPoint presentation
• A word document of the workbook
• A homework/ extension sheet
• A PDF of the workbook for quick printing

Lesson Title: Can I use the scientific method with confidence?

Success criteria:
• Can I define a crystal?
• Can I collect quantitative and qualitative data?
• Can I analyse a graph of data?

Slides include:
• Fun ‘do now’ investigation. Learners use molymods, paper and cellotape, lego bricks to make quick models to show ow time is important for the size of crystal growth.
• Information about the two crowns; St Edwards Crown and The Imperial State Crown
• The mineralogy of the gemstones of the Imperial State Crown
• Revision pages on what a crystal is and crystal structure
• Revision pages on how minerals are made through igneous rock, metamorphic rock, living organisms, alluvial deposits, and water
• Introduction to the safe use of salol and its risk assessment
• Learner notes on how to complete the salol experiment. In this experiment you will need 4 250ml beakers per group and 3 test tubes of solid salol. I used 2 spatulas of salol to recrystalise and this works well and gives learners the chance to measure the crystal sizes. Another way to do this is to prepare slides for a drop of salol to be placed. This often doesn’t work or give results that pupils can measure easily as the crystals can be hard to see.
• A PIT STOP so learners can check their understanding of key words in the scientific method
• A table of results and graph drawing exercise
• How to analyse data
• A quiz to finish to check leaner confidence and engagement throughout the lesson

If you need any additional help with the practical set up or geology of this lesson, please do ask. I hope that all relevant information is given on the presentation. I am a postgraduate in geology.

I do not own any of the images in this presentation but they were downloaded from sites for free.

Enjoy the Coronation!