Elements, Compounds, and Mixtures: Art or Chemistry

Length: 1 hour-long class period

The Metropolitan Nashville Arts Commission engaged two internationally-known artists, Thornton Dial and Lonnie Holley, to create site-specific public art works for the newly revitalized Edmondson Park (overseen by the Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency). This project honors William Edmondson, a native of Davidson County and a self-taught sculptor. Edmondson was the first African American artist to have a solo exhibition at the New York Museum of Modern Art (1937). Like Edmondson, Thornton Dial and Lonnie Holley are self-taught artists.

In this Science Lesson, students will:

  • Students will be formatively assessed during the jigsaw reading lesson through discussion and questioning
  • Lab handout
  • Exit Slip Day 1
  • Gallery Walk
  • Exit Slip Day 2
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Standards & Objectives

Learning objectives: 

Clear Learning Targets:

  • The students will be able to distinguish among elements, compounds, and mixtures.

Task Objectives  (steps to reach mastery of clear learning targets):

  • The students will be able to look at  different artwork and describe the  elements, compounds, and mixtures that make up the artwork.
Essential and guiding questions: 

Questioning: Planning to Illuminate Student Thinking:
Essential Questions:

  • What is the difference between elements, compounds, and mixtures?
  • How are the atoms in air, water, and oxygen the same and how are they different?
  • How is art related to elements, compounds, and mixtures?

Assessing questions:

  • What is the difference between an atom and a compound?
  • How is a heterogeneous mixture different from a homogeneous mixture?
  • How is the way a mixture is combined DIFFERENT from how a compound is combined?
  • What is easier to separate, a mixture or a compound? Why?
  • Which can be found on the periodic table: elements, compounds or mixtures?

Advancing questions: (Gallery Walk)

  • What can you tell about the art from the pictures?
  • What do you notice about the pose of the figure? What is this person doing?
  • What other details do you notice?
  • What kind of different elements, compounds, or mixtures can you see in the art work?
  • Do you think the artwork when left in the park will undergo any physical or chemical changes? Explain.

Lesson Variations

Blooms taxonomy level: 
Applying
Differentiation suggestions: 

Scaffolding opportunities (to address learning challenges):

  • Students who are having difficulty understanding will be assigned a peer tutor to go over the main differences among elements, compounds, and mixtures.
  • Students will exposed to more examples of the three.

Opportunities to Differentiate Learning (explain how you address particular student needs by differentiating process, content, or product):

  • The reading passages can be leveled and differentiated.
  • The reading groups will be based on ability level.
  • The lab groups will be heterogeneous groups. 

Helpful Hints

Materials and Resources:

  • Pictures of the Artwork (see appendix)
  • Various compounds, elements, and mixtures for the lab
  • Pennies
  • Other handouts and materials (see appendix)
Originator: 
Ayers Institute for Learning & Innovation