Chemistry on a Budget: Nuts and Bolts

 I’m on the hunt for inexpensive tools for Chemistry classes!  With rampant inflation, all of us need to be prudent.  One tool is to use nuts and bolts as elements.  Let’s start with a basic activity distinguishing among elements, mixtures and compounds.  Here is Flinn’s Elements, Compounds, and Mixtures activity. These instructions have suggestions for examples of elements, compounds, and mixtures using nuts and bolts in Petrie dishes.  You could put samples in cupcake papers or just in groups on a table.  Use this worksheet  or this worksheet (with a key) for the lab.  

Nuts and Bolts are useful to teach how to balance equations.   The kids can weigh the totals to help them see that mass is conserved.  They can count atoms, too.  I’ll post more when we learn how to balance equations in a week or two.  I’ve been saving bottle caps.