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Oxygen: What a Gas! (Grades 8-9)

Master Teacher

David Banaszak

Overview

This lesson will explain to students how oxygen reacts to other elements. By studying these reactions the student will understand the importance of oxygen to everyday life.

SC Math/Science Standards Met

A. Properties and Changes of Properties in Matter

B. Identify process skills that can be used in scientific investigations

C. Design and conduct a scientific investigation

Learning Objectives

The student will be able to:

explain why oxygen is a reactive substance
explain how it has weight
explain how it reacts with other substances

Materials

notebooks
toilet plungers

ITV Series

Oxygen: What a Gas!

Previewing Activities

Tell the class to hold their breath. Ask them if they know why they can't hold their breath indefinitely. Breathe on a mirror and ask them if they know why the mirror fogs up. Tell them that they will find out these answers and more during this lesson.

Focus for Viewing

To give students a specific responsibility while viewing the video, ask them to watch and listen for an explanation of what oxygen and air pressure are.

Viewing Activities

Fast forward to the segment of the videotape (Oxygen: What a Gas!) that shows a mountain climber. Ask students if they can figure out why there is less oxygen at higher elevations than at lower ones. Resume playing the tape through the section explaining the concept and then stop after you see a cartoon of earth. Ask how thick the shell of the atmosphere is. Compare that to a egg shell and then ask how much oxygen is in air. Ask what other gasses are in air. What else does the atmosphere do besides letting us breathe it? Ask does oxygen have weight.

Play the section of the tape discussing wind surfers and ask how we can measure oxygen's weight.

Then, fast forward to the section that shows the vacuum pump taking all the air out of two halves of a ball. Stop video and ask students why the people in the video couldn't pull the halves apart.

Play the segment of the video illustrating air pressure. Play up to part where the people on screen use two toilet plungers to illustrate air pressure. Start experiment.

Post-Viewing Activities

1. Pass out toilet plungers and have students put them together and push against each other. Then have them try to pull them apart. Have them try different air pressures with the plungers. Ask them when is it easiest to pull them apart. What does this say about air pressure?

2. Have students write an essay on what things would be like on this planet if everything but oxygen were in the atmosphere. Would animals develop and live?

Would plants? How would things burn? Rust? Explain with as much detail as possible.

Action Plan

1. Have students make two terrariums (both sealed)—one with plants and animals, and the other with just animals. Have them check out and chart the condition of the animals daily and weekly.

2. Have students design a spacecraft that would be self-sufficient in space. In it they must include what they would need for the astronauts to breathe for over three months. How would oxygen be produced? How would the astronauts dispose of the carbon dioxide?

Extensions

1. Geography. Chart the areas of the world where the population has the most oxygen. Chart the areas where the population has the least oxygen. Which area has more people? Why do you think this is so?

2. Language Arts. Write a short story on what it would have been like if you were the one to discover oxygen in the middle ages. How would people have reacted to you? What would have happened to you when the authorities found out?