Description
What our Elements: Sulfur lesson plan includes
Lesson Objectives and Overview: Elements: Sulfur lesson plan is a high-interest reading comprehension lesson plan. As such, students will practice various close reading and comprehension skills. In addition, they will learn about one of the most common elements in the Periodic Table of Elements. This lesson is for students in 5th grade and 6th grade.
Classroom Procedure
Every lesson plan provides you with a classroom procedure page that outlines a step-by-step guide to follow. You do not have to follow the guide exactly. The guide helps you organize the lesson and details when to hand out worksheets. It also lists information in the yellow box that you might find useful. You will find the lesson objectives, state standards, and number of class sessions the lesson should take to complete in this area. In addition, it describes the supplies you will need as well as what and how you need to prepare beforehand.
Teacher Notes
The paragraph on this page provides a little more information or guidance on what to expect from the lesson. It explains that you can teach this lesson in a whole-class setting or as an independent, small-group activity. You can use the blank lines to record any thoughts or ideas you have as you prepare.
ELEMENTS: SULFUR LESSON PLAN CONTENT PAGES
Discovery and Practical Applications
The Elements: Sulfur lesson plan contains two content pages. Sulfur is one of the oldest elements known to humans. Ancient people used it for thousands of years ago before knowing what elements were. The word sulfur comes from Latin, and it was once called “brimstone.” People in ancient times noticed that sulfur burns with a bright blue flame and has a strong smell of rotten eggs. In 1789, a French chemist, Antoine Lavoisier, helped prove that sulfur is an element, not a compound. (An element is a pure substance made of only one kind of atom.) He did this using a method called experimental chemistry. Lavoisier carefully observed and tested sulfur to see if it could be broken down into simpler parts.
The most common uses of sulfur are to make sulfuric acid, a strong acid used in car batteries, and to make fertilizers for farming. Farmers use these fertilizers to help plants grow strong and healthy. The element is used to make rubber stronger through a process called vulcanization. Thanks to sulfur, rubber tires don’t melt in the summer or freeze in the winter! Sulfur is also used in some medicines and in making matches and fireworks.
Sulfur Facts and Why the Element Matters
Believe it or not, sulfur is found all around us in nature. It exists inside the earth and can be found near volcanoes and hot springs. Sometimes, you can even see bright yellow sulfur crystals forming around volcanic areas. Sulfur is also found in minerals like pyrite, called “fool’s gold.” Living things, including humans, need it, too. It is part of essential molecules in our bodies, like proteins. In technology, it is used to refine oil and make paper. It even helps clean water by removing harmful substances.
Sulfur is one of only a few nonmetal elements that can appear as a solid with a bright color—a shiny yellow! Even though it smells bad when it’s part of gases like hydrogen sulfide, pure sulfur has no smell. There are also different types, or allotropes, of solid sulfur. That means sulfur atoms can arrange themselves in more than one way. Scientists have studied over 30 different types of solid sulfur!
This smelly element is a critical element for life, science, and industry. Without it, plants wouldn’t grow well, and we wouldn’t have many products we use daily. Our bodies even need it to stay healthy. It helps build amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins. Scientists and engineers continue to find new uses for sulfur in things like medicine, batteries, and pollution control. Understanding this element helps us take better care of the environment and create better tools for the future.
ELEMENTS: SULFUR LESSON PLAN WORKSHEETS
The Elements: Sulfur lesson plan includes two worksheets: an activity worksheet and a review worksheet. Each one will help students solidify their grasp of the material they learned throughout the lesson. You can refer to the classroom procedure guidelines to know when to hand out each worksheet.
SULFUR IN YOUR FOOD ACTIVITY WORKSHEET
For the activity, students will use the internet to find foods high in sulfur and add them their “grocery list” on the worksheet.
REVIEW WORKSHEET
The review worksheet lists 5 questions based on the content. These questions all relate to the content pages, so students will need to refer to them often for the answers. In addition, each question provides which reading tool the question corresponds to, such as text feature, vocabulary, or comprehension.
Worksheet Answer Keys
At the end of the lesson plan document is an answer key for the practice worksheet. The correct answers are all in red to make it easier for you to compare them with students’ responses. If you choose to administer the lesson pages to your students via PDF, you will need to save a new file that omits these pages. Otherwise, you can simply print out the applicable pages and keep these as reference for yourself when grading assignments.
