Magnetic Water Molecule Kit Lessons

Contents and Assembly Directions

Your Magnetic Water Molecule Kit comes with information about the contents of your kit and step-by-step directions for assembling water molecules, ethane, and ethanol.

Click here for a PDF version.

WK Contents and Assemblypdf

 

Basic Lessons

Many lessons and activities are possible with our Magnetic Water Molecule Kit The best place to start is with this 29-page Basic Lesson.  First, you and your students will use the magnetic molecules to explore the concepts of polarity and hydrogen bonding. You can then use this kit to teach adhesion, cohesion, and capillary action; surface tension; states of water; evaporation and condensation; and solubility. Finally, your class can have fun with water with our "Just for Fun" snowflake creation activities.

This 29-page Basic Lesson includes teacher notes and student handouts.

WK Basic Lesson pdf

 

Osmosis Lesson

Your students can explore osmosis by using the Magnetic Water Molecule Kit to make models of the hypertonic, hypotonic, and isotonic states of osmosis and predicting the flow of water in each state. They also will recognize the necessity of aquaporins in water transport across a membrane.

This 10-page Osmosis Lesson includes teacher notes and student handouts.

WK Osmosis Lesson pdf

Click here for the 11-page Osmosis Lesson Answer Key.

WK Osmosis Lesson Key pdf

 

pH Lesson

With this pH Lesson, your students will use the Magnetic Water Molecule Kit to:

  • create a physical representation of the autoionization of water.
  • describe and produce a physical representation of the dissociation of a strong acid and a strong base.
  • associate a high hydronium ion concentration with low pH and a high hydroxide ion concentration with a high pH.
  • demonstrate how the structure of an amino acid is affected by the pH of the environment into which it has been placed.

 

This 10-page pH Lesson includes teacher notes and student handouts.

WK pH Lessonpdf

 

Click here for the 11-page pH Lesson Answer Key.

WK pH Lesson Keypdf

 

Patterns in Crystal Structures Lesson

STEM: The Math, Science and Art of Water Molecules Using Magnetic Models

This activity, intended for grades 4-5, uses the Magnetic Water Molecule Kit and a guided-inquiry approach. t will help your students observe patterns and forms. Your students begin by identifying the number of hexagons in ice. Then they construct and compare cubic and hexagonal ice structures before creating a snowflake.

WK Patterns in Crystal Structures Teacher Notes pdf

WK Patterns in Crystal Structures Student Handout pdf

WK Patterns in Crystal Structures Keypdf

 

Constructivist Lab

With this 2-page Constructivist Lab, middle and high school students working in small groups will use the unassembled pieces of the water molecules to investigate properties of—and interactions between—the model parts before assembling water molecules.

Among the questions to explore: What could these plastic pieces represent? What could the interactions represent? What does a water molecule look like? How do water molecules interact?  What properties of water result from these attractions? How could these magnetic molecular models be used to show water as a gas, liquid, and solid? Additional student challenges include modeling the 3-D geometry of ice crystals and using surfectants to make an object stay on top of a water surface.

WK Constructivist Labpdf

 

Ice and Snowflakes

Scientists have described 14 structures of ice, many of which can be constructed with one or more Magnetic Water Molecule Kits. Here are lessons for building cubic ice (Ice 1c), which is present in the upper atmosphere and requires 10 water molecules; hexagonal ice (Ice 1h), which falls as snowflakes and is formed with 12 water molecules; and more elaborate snowflakes, which can be created with additional Magnetic Water Molecule Kits.

WK Cubic Ice pdf

WK Hexagonal Ice pdf

WK Snowflakespdf