Tuesday+(Does+gas+have+mass???)

“To predict the behavior of ordinary people in advance, you only have to assume that they will always try to escape a disagreeable situation with the smallest possible expenditure of intelligence.” Friedrich Nietzsche
 * BELLWORK (Including character education, ACT math and vocabulary)**
 * Quote**

Vocabulary
 * Blithe**
 * //–adjective//**
 * 1) **joyous, merry, or gay in disposition; glad; cheerful: //Everyone loved her for her blithe spirit.//**


 * Unit pretest**
 * [[file:Pretest.doc]]**

Here is my data analysis of the pretest results

The following multiple choice question will be projected on the screen after the quote and the vocabulary word have been copied down and discussed:
 * CLASS ACTIVITES**
 * How much mass of gas is in the class?**

How many inflated balloons do you think you could put in this room

a) 100 b) 1000 c) 5000 b) 10,000

The bellwork asked the question, “how many inflated balloons would it take to fill our classroom”. The majority of the students chose 10,000. Once a few students defended this answer nearly every student conceded that 10,000 balloons was a low estimate. Inevitably a student asked the “so what?” question. I explained that once we know how many balloons it would take to fill the room all we need to know is how much mass of gas is in each balloon. Once we’re armed with that information we can calculate the mass of the gas in the class. But how do we do that???
 * How many balloon would it take?**

We had a dry ice competition. Each group of students was given access to dry ice and balloons. Their task was to determine the greatest mass of dry ice that can fit into a balloon without causing it to pop. The group that puts in the greatest mass of CO2 into the balloon without causing it to pop wins.
 * Dry ice competition**

Each group was given access to dry ice and balloons and released in the lab (I handled the dry ice for safety reasons). Each group was allowed 45 minutes to experiment with the dry ice and balloons and attempt to determine the greatest mass of dry ice that can be put into a balloon without causing it to pop. I held open the mouth of the balloon and they put in the dry ice (I burned my thumbs in the process of this lab). The balloon was then sealed and the students weighed the balloon and dry ice. The students the monitored the balloon as it inflated as the dry ice sublimated. Once the 45 minutes expired each group will cleaned their lab station and return to the class. When we return to class I announced the winners.
 * Rules of the game**

Now that we know how much mass is in each balloon and the number of balloons it would take to fill the room we can determine what mass of gas is in the class.
 * How much mass of gas is in the class?**

I expect that most students will grossly underestimate the mass of the gas in the classroom. I suspect that they will guess that the mass of the gas in the room will be less than 10 pounds. I think that the students will enjoy sublimating the dry ice that they will appreciate that gas has substantial mass by the end of this lesson.
 * __What I expect__**


 * Reflection**
 * This activity went really well. Nearly all the student had a good appreciation for the fact that the mass of air in the classroom was substantial. I also got some students questioning the method that we used to determine the mass of the air in the classroom. Student brought up that the gas in the balloons was CO2 and not oxygen and nitrogen. They also pointed out that the gas in the balloon was under pressure and that might affect the validity of the calculations. Overall this was a fun day of class and the lesson was effective. Lucky for me, this was also the day that I got observed. Needless to say, I got a glowing review.**