Bell Ringers for Conservation of Mass

Bell Ringers for Conservation of Mass

bell ringer 1

This is my first year of using Modeling InstructionTM in my chemistry classes. During a fit of productivity, I created some bell ringers for unit one, which is partly about conservation of mass. I hope you will find them useful. 

If you are logged in, you can access the bell ringers below. They are part of the "student document".

 

 

Materials

Background

These are bell ringers for use while teaching conservation of mass.

Procedure

Provide one bell ringer per day to get class started. Project it for students and give them just a few minutes to complete. 

Questions

Concepts

Conservation of mass

Time Required

Approximately 5 minutes per class period.

Preparation

none

Attribution

I created these myself while using Modeling InstructionTM.

Credits

Comments

9
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Profile picture for user Hal Harris
Hal Harris • University of Missouri - St. Louis
March 03

Suggested follow-ups to your mass conservation bell-ringers

Once your students are thoroughly convinced that mass is conserved, do the following demos on consecutive days:

1. Mix vinegar with sodium bicarbonate. [weight decreases; mass is conserved]

2. Mix vinegar with sodium bicarbonate inside a sealed baggie. [weight decreases; mass is conserved]

3. Mix vinegar with sodium bicarbonate inside a sealed bottle. [weight is conserved; mass is conserved]

Discuss all three of these observations only after the third one is completed.  

cleverington • Gi
August 16

DId you ever...

I'm gonna try using a couple of these over the next few days and I was wondering....Did you ever make a bell ringer for heating a metal?   Like the burning steel wool lab?  I would love one like that.  Maybe heating a piece of copper wire?  I don't think I have the capabilities to make such neat pictures as you have.  LOL.

cleverington • Gi
August 16

I tried one with copper

I made this one...not as high quality...but what do you think? Lol

 

copper wire bell ringer image

 

Profile picture for user Chad Husting
Chad Husting • Sycamore High School, Cincinnati Ohio
High School chemistry teacher, Target Inquiry
August 19

In reply to by cleverington

Question

I like the idea.  I have a question.  Are you heating the copper or burning the copper?  There is a big difference.  I see that  there are "particulate drawings" of the copper.  Should there be some for oxygen?  Also, this might be hard to describe, but I was told by a professor to draw the object, like a piece of metal and then to draw a "magnifying glass" showing the particulate level.  I can completely understand what you are trying to do but students might get an unintentional misconception about the size of atoms.  I hope this helps and makes sense.  I really like your idea and want to encourage you to keep going.  Please continue to share.  I have a question. What program do you use to draw these?   It looks great.  Thanks again for sharing.

cleverington • Gi
August 21

In reply to by Chad Husting

good questions

These bell ringers are generally aligned with the 6 mass labs that are done at the start of the Modeling Chemistry Curriculum.  Before I gave them this one we had done a lab where they measured the mass of a piece of steel wool and then burned it with a bunsen burner and measured the mass after.  The steel wool, much to the surprise of the students had gained mass, because as we know it had reacted with the oxygen in the air.   So this is designed to reinforce the idea that when a metal is burned that it will react with "air particles" and increase in mass.   We've also already discussed that we're zooming in on the particles, and that we're not drawing actual size.  The focus here is more on the number of particles vs the size of particles etc.  I don't do the whole magnifying glass thing because (1) you wouldn't be able to see the particles with the magnifying glass and (2) its just a lot of busy work.   At this point, I intentionally didn't draw the oxygen particles on the beginning side.  But when we discussed it as a class after they completed it, we discussed if we should have drawn them on the first box as well.

Honestly, I made them using the snipping tool and word.  I snipped her balances from the original document.  Put a new text box over her balance with the mass in it.  Created the particles with word.  Found a picture of a bunsen burner on google and snipped it, etc.    

Profile picture for user Doug Ragan
Doug Ragan • Hudsonville Public Schools, Hudsonville, Michigan, HS Chemistry Teacher
iPads, Flipclass, Target Inquiry at GVSU, Please check out my website: http://dragan38.wix.com/mrragan Member of: MSTA, AACT
August 23

Thanks

These would be great with the Classkick app that I use that allows the students to draw on their iPads.  Thanks for taking the time to put these together.  Will you have your students test these....?

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