A fast-paced lesson that looks at the key details of the different substances which are found along the pH scale. This lesson has been designed for GCSE students and to build on the foundation knowledge that they picked up at KS3. Along with the obvious Scientific knowledge associated with the lesson, both numeracy and literacy skills are challenged during the lesson. Time is taken to ensure that the meaning of pH is understood and new terms such as base are introduced, so that these are recognised when written in assessment questions. Students will recall the scale numbers associated with acidic, neutral and alkaline solutions and their knowledge will be extended through the introduction of hydrogen and hydroxide ions. A method for taking a pH reading using a pH probe is included which can be used should the teacher chose that it is required. Progress checks are written into the lesson at regular intervals so that students can constantly assess their understanding.

This is an engaging and practical-based lesson which uses the background idea of a man needing to make crystals for a date to engage students into understanding how the separation methods of filtration and crystallisation work. Like all of the lessons in the separation topic, a lot of the key terms sound similar and are often wrongly used by students. For this reason, time is given in the lesson to ensure that students can use them correctly, especially when describing filtration. In line with the background of the lesson, students are challenged to come up with the apparatus and substances needed to make the crystals. A method is provided so should the teacher choose, students will be able to carry out the practical and produce the copper sulphate crystals. Progress checks are written into the lesson at regular intervals, which question the students on this lesson topic and that of related ones and the final task of the lesson involves an exam question where students have to describe the method and equipment needed to make crystals. This lesson has primarily been written for GCSE students (14 - 16 years in the UK) but is appropriate for younger students who are studying the separation topic

This is an engaging lesson which uses a range of tasks and quiz competitions to ensure that the important details about elements are embedded so that students can use them in related Chemistry topics. The lesson begins by looking at the chemical symbols that are used with the elements. Students do not have to know the symbols off by heart because of the widely available Periodic Table but a sound knowledge will always help going forward. Time is taken to ensure that students understand how the symbols have to be written so that those with two letters consist of a capital and a lower case letter. In a race against each other, students are challenged to complete a crossword by converting symbols to the name of elements. This will result in a winner, a second placed and a third placed student who can be given a gold, silver and bronze medal. The atoms within each of these medals is explored so that students can learn that the gold and silver medals will only be made up of one type of atom and are therefore elements whilst the bronze is an alloy. The remainder of the lesson looks at some of the uses of the different elements and a homework task gets students to put this into written form. This lesson is suitable for both KS3 and GCSE students.

This is an engaging and informative lesson that looks at the group of unsaturated hydrocarbons known as the alkenes and focuses on a few properties, their displayed and chemical formulae and identification. This lesson has been designed for GCSE students and works nicely with the “alkanes” lesson as students can use learning from both lessons. The lesson begins by ensuring that students recognise a key difference between the alkenes and the alkanes in terms of the carbon-carbon bond. This shows them that there is no such substance as methane. They are guided through the rules of drawing alkenes, with examples of ethene and propene used so that they can then apply this technique to draw butene. Working together with the teacher, they will be able to write the general formula that connects this group of substances. The rest of the lesson focuses on the term unsaturated and how this affects them in terms of the identification test with bromine water as well reactions with hydrogen. The lesson finishes by getting students to recognise a use of ethene in making the alcohol, ethanol.

This fully-resources lesson looks at the phenomenon known as the Bohr effect and describes and explains how an increased carbon dioxide concentration affects the dissociation of oxyhaemoglobin. The PowerPoint has been designed to cover the second part of point 3.1.2 (j) of the OCR A-level Biology A specification and continually ties in with the previous lesson on the role of haemoglobin. The lesson begins with a terminology check to ensure that the students can use the terms affinity, oxyhaemoglobin and dissociation. In line with this, they are challenged to draw the oxyhaemoglobin dissociation curve and are reminded that this shows how oxygen associates with haemoglobin but how it dissociates at low partial pressures. Moving forwards, a quick quiz is used to introduce Christian Bohr and the students are given some initial details of his described effect. This leads into a series of discussions where the outcome is the understanding that an increased concentration of carbon dioxide decreases the affinity of haemoglobin for oxygen. The students will learn that this reduction in affinity is a result of a decrease in the pH of the cell cytoplasm which alters the tertiary structure of the haemoglobin. Opportunities are taken at this point to challenge students on their prior knowledge of protein structures as well as the bonds in the tertiary structure. The lesson finishes with a series of questions where the understanding and application skills are tested as students have to explain the benefit of the Bohr effect for an exercising individual. These questions are differentiated to allow students of differing abilities to access the work and to be challenged