This is an engaging, problem-based inquiry activity that gets your students to examine Polymers to solve a real-life problem and learn to think critically. Designed for science students in high school chemistry, this activity is NGSS, Common Core, and STEM-aligned and uses common experiences and materials to apply your lessons in a meaningful way. Your resource is fully-editable and can be uploaded to your class site or printed for students' use.

Learning Goals:

• Identify a real-world problem with existing polymer usage
• Design a solution for the problem
• Create an action based around their solution

Prerequisites: An basic knowledge of what a polymer is.

NGSS

HS-PS2-6: Communicate scientific and technical information about why the molecular-level structure is important in the functioning of designed materials.

This activity will motivate and engage your students and force them to think critically, analyze a common situation, apply what they’ve learned in a meaningful way, problem-solve and work collaboratively.

In this activity, your students’ job is to:

1) Apply what they have learned both inside and outside the classroom to solve the posed problem in the best way possible

2) Conduct their own research to decide if they need to learn anything else in order to solve the problem

3) Make sure they answer all the questions you asked them by collecting data and providing evidence and reasoning for their responses.

Your complete resource includes a student and teacher version. The student version contains the basic information they can use to design and carry out their experiment. The teacher version includes the answer key, look-fors as well as teacher tips tricks to make everything go smoothly.

Here are some additional PBLs you might be interested in.

Physics:

• The Scientific Method

• Banked Curves

• Conservation of Energy

• Friction Safety

• The Electric Home

Chemistry:

• Polymers

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If you have any questions please feel free to send me an email - devon@teachwithfergy.com