KS3 ~ Year 7 ~ Thermal Decomposition

This lesson is designed for the Activate KS3 Science Course, specifically Year 7 C3 ’Reactions’.

For more lessons designed for KS3 and KS4 please visit my shop at: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resources/shop/SWiftScience.

This lesson starts with a video on decomposition reactions, students will be given a set of questions which they will need to answer whilst watching the video. The mark scheme to this task is included in the PowerPoint, so students can self-assess their work once it is complete.

Students now know what a decomposition reaction is, they are now asked to consider what they think a thermal decomposition reaction might be. Students ‘Think > Pair > Share’ their ideas, eventually feeding their ideas back to a class discussion and the answer can be revealed using the PowerPoint so students can check their answers.

Next, students will complete an investigation to determine which metal carbonate will decompose the quickest. Students will be given a practical worksheet, they can work their way through the steps and write their results in the results table provided.

Once students have collected their results, they are asked which type of graph would be most suitable to present their results. Students can discuss their ideas before feeding back into a class discussion, the answer is then revealed as a bar chart as we are dealing with discrete data. Students can then plot their results onto a graph.

The plenary task is a ‘pick a plenary’ activity - students will either summarise what they have learned in three sentences or they can write a definition for a list of key words from the last few lessons.

All resources are included at the end of the presentation. Thanks for looking, if you have any questions please let me know in the comments section and any feedback would be appreciated :)