Combustion

Students use mathematical concepts and activities to set the stage for the course using this segment. In IS1, students use the investigation of combustion, a simple chemical system, to explore calorimetry, reactants and products, and precision and accuracy in a combustion reaction.

The Combustion unit will begin by examining the nutrition labels of popular food items and having students familiarize themselves with the term calorie through a reading. Next, the students will investigate combustion through a wet lab where they will collect evidence to help them describe and define combustion. Students will then construct a calorimeter and carry out an investigation to collect data and measure the energy stored in food (cheeto). This leads them to the next activity where they will discover the need for significant figures and scientific notation for their data, due to the inconsistencies in the group data. This unit concludes with having students analyze and interpret data using math and computational thinking to assess the accuracy and precision of their data collected. In addition, the students will evaluate how their accuracy could be increased if they were to repeat the calorimetry investigation.