Students learn about material balances, a fundamental concept of chemical engineering. They use stoichiometry to predict the mass of carbon dioxide that escapes after reacting measured quantities of sodium bicarbonate with dilute acetic acid. Students then produce the reactions of the chemicals in a small reactor made from a plastic water bottle and balloon.

Playing with LEGOS is fun. But, they can also teach us something about matter. In this episode of Crash Course Kids, Sabrina chats about chemical reactions and the Conservation of Matter.

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Students learn how engineers design devices that use water to generate electricity by building model water turbines and measuring the resulting current produced in a motor. Student teams work through the engineering design process to build the turbines, analyze the performance of their turbines and make calculations to determine the most suitable locations to build dams.

Through this lab, students are introduced to energy sciences as they explore redox reactions and how hydrogen fuel cells turn the energy released when hydrogen and oxygen are combined into electrical energy that can be read on a standard multimeter. They learn about the energy stored in bonds and how, by controlling the reaction, this energy can be turned into more or less useful forms.

So when water evaporates, what happens? Where does that water go? Does just vanish? Is it no more? Can matter ever just go away? Well, the answer is no, it can't. But it can LOOK like it does. In this episode of Crash Course Kids, Sabrina shows us how Conservation of Mass actually works with Sugar and Water.

Students learn about the water cycle and its key components. First, they learn about the concept of a watershed and why it is important in the context of engineering hydrology. Then they learn how we can use the theory of conservation of mass to estimate the amount of water that enters a watershed (precipitation, groundwater flowing in) and exits a watershed (evaporation, runoff, groundwater out). Finally, students learn about runoff and how we visualize runoff in the form of hydrographs.

Students will observe how plants increase in mass due to photosynthesis and apply ideas of the conservation of mass.