Category: Let’s Experiment!

Fun with patterns and ideas

Yasmin Jayathirtha

Have you tried puzzle templates, anagrams, crossword puzzles, mazes and word searches to make your chemistry class both fun and doable ? If your children find it hard to remember the details like formulae, names, terms etc in chemistry, here are simple and effective ways you can change your class from being boring to being a lot of fun.

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Explore, invent and apply

Yasmin Jayathirtha
When teaching new concepts in science, the only way a teacher can assess whether a student has understood or not is to set exercises or provide data and ask for analysis. Here are two experiments that teach reasoning skills to students and are based on exploration, invention and application and do not need previous knowledge.

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Metals and ores

Yasmin Jayathirtha

How are metals extracted from ores? Does this in anyway affect the environment? Try these experiments and find out.

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Portable playthings

Yasmin Jayathirtha
Most of us are acquainted with board games and other indoor games which helped hone our skills. But could there be games to help us learn our subjects and also have fun while learning? This article talks about a few games that will help children learn their science, especially formulae which they need to remember. Teachers can try out some of these games in the classroom so that children enjoy learning and find the drill work painless.

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Water links

Yasmin Jayathirtha During the holidays one takes a break from classes, curriculum, and the day-to-day planning of lessons. It is at this time that one thinks of one’s subject in a broader manner. The May/June issue of Teacher Plus on geography was particularly inspiring. The articles covered a wide range of disciplines and it got me thinking about all the subjects chemistry intersects with. Geography, of course, in earth science, and environmental science are the most obvious. While the study of chemistry as a subject has all the principles and details, I wonder if students are able to extract the relevant reactions and relate them to the concepts they study in the other classes. Some of the experiments may not be performed at all in chemistry classes since they may not be necessary to illustrate the concepts being learnt. It will be good to explore experiments that act as a link between subjects; experiments lying on the periphery of two subjects and therefore neglected by both. Over the next few months, I would like to look at experiments that will illustrate concepts in geography and environmental science. I hope they will be helpful both to the chemistry teacher, wanting to make the subject relevant to the real world, and to the other teachers to illustrate and establish links. None of these experiments is new and what is being done is to sequence them differently. Water is one of the topics studied with different emphasis in chemistry, biology, geography, and environmental science. Let us look at a sequence of experiments that will be appropriate for a geography lesson. The author works with Centre for Learning, Bengaluru. She can be reached at yasmin.cfl@gmail.com. This is an article for subscribers only. You may request the complete article by writing to us at editorial@gamart.in.

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It’s magic time!

Yasmin Jayathirtha

Over the last one year through this column a lot of experiments were shared and through them a lot of chemistry was hopefully assimilated. So why not get the kids to use that knowledge to entertain their class or school with a show of magic?

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Understanding the pH scale

Yasmin Jayathirtha

A pH scale is something that a child learning science is supposed to know. But does he/she really know what a pH scale is? Who invented it and why? This month’s Let’s experiment brings you an experiment to help you understand the pH scale.

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Light effects

Yasmin Jayathirtha
Continuing our series on reactions, this time the author talks about the reactions of photography, both to show the effect of light on chemicals and to capture images in an interesting art form.

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Making materials we can use

Yasmin Jayathirtha

There are several materials that we use everyday from soaps and toothpastes to shampoos and cleaning agents. Have you ever wondered how the processes to make them were discovered and who made them? Today most of these items are available at shops and supermarkets. But have you tried making them at home? Here are a few steps to try making toothpaste and soap at home. Check it out.

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