Evidence of chemical reactions (KS3, middle school)

This is the perfect activity for any unit where you are teaching chemical reactions. E.g. KS3 in the UK curriculum or at any middle school level.

In the worksheet students are given three chemical reactions to read about:

• Zinc and hydrochloric acid/ hydrogen chloride
• Combustion of iron wool
• Lead nitrate and Potassium Iodide (a very cool precipitation reaction)

They need to work through different activities including:

1. Matching reaction descriptions to “before” diagrams
2. Drawing the “after” diagram for each reaction
3. Filling in a results table (scaffolded)
4. Matching the reaction to the chemical equation
5. Explaining each reaction (scaffolded)

See the preview image if you want to make sure it’s right for you.

If you need a resource to help your student really get to grips with signs of chemical reactions this is it.

I’ve also included a teacher guide which has links to my favourite YouTube video of each reaction and a method to do them as a class experiment (for zinc and hydrochloric acid) or as a demo (for the combustion and precipitation reaction). There is a separate document of suggested answers, too, because no one has time to make that on the fly!

If you download and like this resource, I would love any feedback, I want to strive to keep making my resources as user-friendly as possible.