Solubility

Teaching Ideas

Learning Objective: To plan an investigation on solubility.

Success Criteria: • To define keywords.

• To apply keywords to situations.

• To design a safe and valid experiment.

• To describe how temperature affects solubility.

Context: This is the sixth lesson of the topic of ‘States of Matter’ in key stage 3 chemistry.

Starter
A Nice Cup of Tea
On slide 3 is a picture of a cup of tea alongside a question asking, ‘When you add sugar to a cup of tea what happens to the
sugar, mass of the tea and, if the tea is made with cold water?’ This allows students to draw upon their knowledge of an everyday
situation regarding solutions, and for the teacher to gauge the students’ understanding of solubility.

Main Activities
Adding Sugar to Water
Slides 4-6: Discuss and explain the science behind the starter activity. On slide 4 a common misconception is addressed, that
dissolving is not disappearing and in fact the mass of the two substances are added together. On slide 5, students are asked:
when making tea with colder water, why would the sugar take longer to dissolve, if it all? Slide 6 explains the basic science behind
this: that the kinetic energy of the water particles is higher in hotter water, and their collisions with the sugar molecules cause the
bonds in the sugar cube to be broken. This is a simplified explanation for key stage 3 students.

Keywords Activity
Slides 7-9: Students are introduced to three keywords ‘solute’, ‘solvent’ and ‘solution’ and their definitions are given on slide 7. On
this slide, students are asked to draw a cup of tea in their books and annotate the correct definition next to each part of the tea.
Answers are shown on slide 8. On slide 9, the additional keywords ‘saturated’ and ‘insoluble’ are introduced, and students should
copy these down for use in the next task.

Planning an Experiment Activity Sheet

Slides 10-11: Students follow one of the differentiated activity sheets to plan a safe and valid experiment into dissolving sugar
in water at different temperatures. Both activity sheets follow the same six steps of: writing a paragraph containing background
information and keywords; writing a method; drawing how the particles look before and after adding the sugar; designing a risk
assessment; identifying variables, and creating a prediction. Students should be encouraged to check their plans with their peers,
and to complete the peer assessment sheet included, and respond to feedback. There is also a teacher assessment sheet that
could be completed after the lesson where formative feedback can be given. If time, resources and your school permit, students
can also perform this experiment during the lesson.

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Solubility Quick Assessment Sheet
Slide 12: Students follow the activity sheet to demonstrate their knowledge of solubility by answering exam style questions. The
final question shows a solubility curve designed to test students on their graph analysis and description skills. There is also a
teacher assessment sheet that could be completed after the lesson where formative feedback can be given.

Plenary
Slides 13-15: Show students the three pictures on slide 13 of a beach, making coffee and bath bombs with the question, ‘How
many keywords can you spot in these pictures?’ Students could write their answers for each on mini whiteboards, in their books,
or work in pairs to make a list. Answers are given on slide 14.

Remind the students of today’s success criteria on slide 15 of the PowerPoint.

Suggested Home Learning

Students could write a list of the solutions they make over the next week and apply today’s keywords to each situation.

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