Chemistry the Waldorf-Inspired Way

Nov 14
Hana

When approaching the sciences of the middle school years (years 6, 7 and 8) in a Waldorf setting, you’ll find a drastically different and quite refreshing delivery physics and chemistry. Instead of tables, theories and graphics exploring the elements, states of matter, metals and their reactivity, organic and inorganic chemistry, and more, you find a slow yet thrilling observation of the phenomena. Students will watch in wonder as a demonstration occurs, with the teacher explaining the apparatus, not the experiment. She will delivery the demonstration yet not explain it or conceptualize it. It will be left alone until the following day when she will ask the students to use their power of memory to recall the sequence and results. Through observation, conclusions will be established by the student. The student will move from “observation to thinking” and ” conclusion to concept” (Chemistry in Classes 7 and 8 by Graham Kennish page 21). If explanations and concepts are delivered with or before the lesson, those concepts become hardened as part of the phenomenon and leave no room for living, dynamic thought. Those powers of observation are dulled and replaced with cold hard facts that were undoubtedly discovered and observed by philosophers of the past (scientists).

These are the books and resources I’m using to put together our Waldorf Main Lesson Block for Chemistry starting in grade 7 and continuing to grade 8. While I recommend 1-2 chemistry resource books for the teacher to familiarize herself with scientific concepts, this is not meant to be used in delivering the lesson or for the student. However, I do share an abundant list of resources in the Chemistry Unit Study video as well as the list of resources below that would be suitable for families who wish to approach chemistry in a conventional way. As for Chemistry in the Waldorf or Waldorf inspired approach, I have very few, yet incredible rich resources to share with you. Only one of these resources is necessary, and I make no secret that my current favorite middle school science resource is Chemistry the Waldorf Way and Physics the Waldorf Way (if you are looking for a Waldorf Physics resource). Your chemistry resource is only one of many things you’ll need to teach chemistry. Unlike other subjects in which a book and few supplies is sufficient, in chemistry, you budget needs to accommodate the supplies and materials needed for demonstrations.

Additionally, you’ll need a Main lesson book and while I prefer the 9.5″x12″ blank Main lesson book from A Child’s Dream, some teachers recommend an even larger main lesson book. One other thing to note: In the Live Education Anatomy main lesson book, it suggests that you do your chemistry main lesson block prior to doing your anatomy block. Sound advice. But if you are working with individual books rather than a full curriculum you may find this challenging. To date, I’m only deeply familiar with the Live Education curriculum having been first introduced to it in 2003, though since then, many other curricula have found their way to the marketplace inviting many choices. Whatever path you choose, may you find the resources easy to use and meaningful for your students.

Waldorf Chemistry Resources

Chemistry Resources

What’s the difference between Waldorf chemistry resources and these resources? Primarily, it’s in the scientific content. You’ll find all the science that’s been discovered through years and years of science exploration in chemistry and beyond collected and organized in the following resources. You will also find experiment suggestions. What you won’t find is the opportunity for your student to make his or her own conclusions based on observations of the phenomenon through chemistry demonstrations. When the student discovers the unfolding of a chemical process and sees the results without being told of the concept or having the phenomenon explained, the student may live the science in a dynamic way, while the observations and memory of the demonstration settle in the students mind.

Can both approaches exist in one unit? I would encourage you to do these lessons in the way you feel most comfortable. The following resources are more than you will need for middle school, so I suggest using just the ones that appeal to you the most and avoid books that are redundant as I have shared many books that are quite similar. One type of book that I think works for both a Main lesson approach as well as a unit study are biographies. And while female scientist biographies may have been slim in the past, I’m pleased to see so many females represented in this space now.

https://youtu.be/WBaojlceAFE

Chemistry Resources

Chalk Drawing | Combustion

Chalk drawings are a quintessential part of Waldorf Main Lesson Blocks, but you don’t need to do a large scale drawing. While I have used my 4 foot by 6 foot chalkboard, I have made them on smaller boards or more often done drawings in a Main lesson book with my student. And even if you use a large chalkboard like mine, you don’t need to fill the whole board with a drawing, though I have been guilty of that in the past. For this chemistry drawing on combustion, I have one drawing, a graphic, a title and some text. This cuts down on the time it takes to make a drawing, and also lessens the need to keep it up long term as I have in the past because once you invest so much time in a chalk drawing, it can be a little hard erasing it.

For this drawing, I cleaned the chalkboard with a wet rag and let it dry completely. It does take at least 2 passes with a rag to clean it thoroughly. I used Super Simple Chemistry: The Ultimate Bitesize Study Guide by DK  as illustration inspiration as well as some pinterest ideas that came from my homeschool friend, Emily at Life on a Ranch Homeschool. I sketched a couple designs in the Live Education Chemistry curriculum and opted to start with this drawing on Combustion as it is the first chemical process we will be covering. While these lessons still serve as an introduction to the subject area, I love connecting and relevant the lessons are for a middle school student.

Chemistry Lesson 1 | The Chemical Processes

You might look at the watercolor of blue ‘water’ and think, “That’s easy”, and you’re right, that’s easy looking and doesn’t seem to require any special skills, but our artistic representation of this first lesson in Chemistry: An Introduction to the chemical processes, took longer than expected and was harder to do than you’d think. The illustration may seem inconsequential to the lesson, and certain some would say it’s not necessary, it’s the lesson content that’s important, and for this lesson, I completely agree. However, I encourage you to do the water color representation of water because it was both meditative and engaging, gave my students time to pause and reflect (though what they reflected on may not have been the lesson), and allowed us to play with watercolors in a way that reflected the water cycle and the importance water plays in some chemical processes.

While this lesson covered three chemical processes: Combustion, Salt Formation and Solutions and Solvents, we only had space to write about two of them so we will save the third chemical processes for another entry. The imaginative story that opened this lesson draws upon the mineralogy block from the previous year. The story begins with volcanoes, a candle and our own digestion to weave the story to fire and combustion. We then look at the opposite of combustion and we explore the water cycle in relation to the limestone cycle, finally resting on salt formation and precipitation. We conclude the lesson with an introduction of solutions and solvents.

Chemistry Lesson 2 | Introduction to Combustion

The introduction to combustion was a beautiful imaginative story that gentle wove together concepts that were learned in the previous years in the mineralogy and botany main lesson blocks. Call backs to zoology were made as well, though more subtly. I like how we began by looking at volcanoes, a candle and even digestion to see what they all had in common before exploring combustion further. Other chemical processes were touched upon as well like oxidation and acids and bases. Even though several lessons are devoted to this introduction of combustion, the time is well spent in establishing a clear foundation as the study of chemistry is subtle in its causes though its reactions are spectacular.

Combustion Demonstration | The Chemical Process of a Candle

In this lesson for chemistry, we finally dive into our first demonstration. This demonstration involves seeing how long a candle flame burns within a glass jar. For this demonstration, we used a pint sized jar, a quart and 1/2 gallon mason jar. We hypothesized how long it would take before the candle extinguished in each jar, thinking the candle would burn twice as long in the quart versus the pint and twice as long in the 1/2 gallon as in the quart since those sizes are twice as large. The results were not as expected, however, I think more data needed to be collected for better results. However, the purpose of observing that the flame is extinguished after a period of time within the enclosure was achieved and this demonstrates that combustion needs a fuel (the candle), heat (the flame) and oxygen (the air).

The most exciting part of this demonstration was when we used water to create a seal so no air could seep in from under the lip of the jar and instead we saw the water rise in the jar as a vacuum was created as the oxygen was consumed out of the air.

For this demonstration we will need a candle, lighter, jars of various sizes and optionally, a dish and water if you want to try that variation of the demonstration. We included the lesson into the main lesson book a day after the demonstration was complete. We revisit the demonstration the following day as we recapitulate the demonstration before lesson work and the the new lesson.

DIY Chemistry Game

For one of our chemistry lessons, the curriculum suggested that the student record a list of elements with their symbols into the lesson book. Not all the elements were listed, only about 20 common ones related to the lessons were listed in the book. This project would be great as a group project with students doing a whole set of elements or making several sets of just one element. We took some liberties with the illustrations as related to the elements. For instance, we chose a tree for carbon rather than a diamond or graphite pencil which are both excellent ideas another homeschooler on Instagram suggested because carbon is trapped in plants and when you burn a tree, for instance, the carbon is released back into the air as carbon dioxide. And since we just finished several lessons on combustion, a tree for carbon made sense and was relevant.

Also, there is a difference between sodium the element and sodium the mineral, same for potassium. As both minerals contain the elements by their name, I used the mineral illustration on those cards with a salt crystal and banana to symbolize potassium even though there are far better choices for foods containing potassium. Many illustrations in fact contain images that depict the elements in their compound form just as iron being shown as a steel bridge or chlorine being shown as water because chlorine in the form of bleach is used to sanitize water.

This game was such fun to play that I’m considering doing another set with elements we haven’t done yet. And as I did this set for my daughter, I thought it would be fun for her to do the next set, though I think these elements are easier than the ones we haven’t done yet. The elements we did for this set are hydrogen, helium, nitrogen, oxygen, neon, carbon, sodium, potassium, phosphorus, sulphur, chlorine, aluminum, silicon, zinc. gold, silver, lead, iron, copper, mercury, and tin.

For this project we used Fabriano Hot Press 140 pound watercolor paper, Gabie watercolors, The Elements Book: A Visual Encyclopedia of the Periodic Table (DK Our World in Pictures) Hardcover –by DK (Author), Smithsonian Institution, and a Sharpie black ultra fine point.

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