Summary

The lesson should be introduced as an example of combustion - an irreversible change. Pupils should therefore have already carried out work on other changes such as freezing, melting, dissolving and evaporating. Ideally, some practical observation works on burning materials or discussions based on the pupils' own experiences would be a useful introduction to this lesson.

Suitable for

Years 5 and 6

Using a non-interactive whiteboard

All the activities can be carried out using a non-interactive whiteboard from the host computer. The advantage of an interactive whiteboard is that during the second activity the whiteboard annotation tools can be used to tabulate the timings for the various candles.

Prior learning required

Practical work on changing materials both reversible and irreversible.

Aims and objectives

• to observe what happens when a candle burns and link this with an understanding of combustion
• to understand that oxygen is needed for substances to burn
• to understand that the changes are irreversible and result in new materials being produced

Timings

Suggestions for group activities

• A different group of pupils could be responsible for operating the whiteboard during each activity, discussing their observations at each stage while the rest of the class is checking their findings.
• Carefully structured group practical activities observing burning materials could be provided by the class teacher. For safety reasons this might best be attempted by one group at a time while other pupils are completing the printable worksheet or other text-based science work.

Suggestions for differentiation

• The interactive activities are differentiated by outcome.
• The quiz activity could be adapted for very able pupils by covering up the key words.
• For special needs pupils, picture captions could be inserted in an adapted worksheet to help pupils choose the correct key word.

Further activities

The practical activities could consist of small group investigations or teacher demonstrations of burning (safely) a variety of household substances, eg sugar and salt, to show the different flames produced and the typical carbon (ash) deposit.

Curriculum links

Science

Materials and their properties

2.4 Changing materials - changes that occur when most materials are burnt are not reversible and result in a new material being produced.

IT

Modelling - exploring aspects of real situations, changing variables in real time

Communicating and handling information - interpret and analyse information presented on screen.