KS3 ~ Year 7 ~ Melting & Freezing

This lesson is designed for the Activate KS3 Science Course, specifically Year 7 C1.1 ’Particles & their Behaviour’

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 animation on melting and freezing, along with written definitions that students could use to take notes down in their books.

This leads into a task whereby students need to explain what is happening to the particle arrangement of a solid as it melts in a liquid, and of a liquid as it turns back into a solid during freezing. Students will watch a video first, then will have a go at coming up with their written explanations. Their answers can then be checked against the ones included in the PowerPoint presentation, students can mark and correct their work.

Next, students are introduced to the idea of pure and impure substances are an explanation of how this affects the melting point of a substance is included. Students can investigate the melting point of stearic acid by carrying out a practical investigation, the equipment list and method for this investigation is included on the PowerPoint for students to follow. Their results should be recorded in a suitable table and can be plotted onto graph paper as an extension task.

Next, students are given a diagram of the changes of state and are asked to draw a particle diagram for each of the states of matter, to show the transition between the states. This work can be self-assessed using the answers provided.

Lastly, students will be asked to complete a ‘Progress Check’ task to assess what they have learned so far this lesson. The mark scheme for this task is included on the PowerPoint.

The plenary is a ‘pick a plenary’ task, students can either summarise what they have learned so far this lesson in three sentences or write definitions for a set of key words.

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 :)