Rockets went flying into the air recently at Lincoln Middle School, but they weren’t the dangerous kind.  The Alka-Seltzer rockets made by the students were part of a science lab that seventh grade teacher Maggie Dust used to teach her students about chemical and physical changes.  

Dust, in her fourth year of teaching at Lincoln Middle School, explained that the Edwardsville District 7 seventh grade science curriculum covers several science concepts. 

“We do a little bit of chemistry mostly like solids, liquids and gases.   We branch a little bit into the periodic table and then we cover environmental science, physical science and cell and plants,” she noted.  “This is a part of the chemistry unit.”

Dust was using the Alka-Seltzer rocket lab to help teach the seventh graders about changes of state as well as the difference between physical and chemical changes.  “Today were going to go outside and use Alka-Seltzer tablets, water and (35mm) film canisters. It’s going to show chemical changes. When the gas is produced the canister will explode.  It will shoot the canister up in the air basically,” Dust said giving an overview of the lab.

She began the lab by first holding up a 35mm plastic film canister – an item foreign to 12 and 13 year olds - and explaining to the students what this object was used for in bygone years. 

Each student received their own film canister, filled it with water and returned to their desk where an Alka-Seltzer tablet was waiting for them.  Dust instructed the students to break their Alka-Seltzer tablet into pieces.  “What kind of change occurred when the tablet was broken into pieces?” she quizzed the students.  “Did we make a new substance? No.  That’s what a chemical change is.”

“It’s a physical change,” a student noted.

The students then dropped a piece of Alka-Seltzer tablet into their canister and observed the tablet floating and beginning to fizz creating a chemical reaction.  They made written notes of their observations before emptying out their canisters, re-filling them with water, placing the cap on the canister and putting on their winter coats in preparation to go outside.

Outside the students put an Alka-Seltzer tablet inside their film canister, placed the lid back on the canister, placed the canister upside down in the middle of the courtyard, took several steps away from the canisters and waited for the reaction to occur.

After only a couple of minutes, the canisters began shooting into the air to the amazement of the students.

“Whenever there’s so much gas built up in the canister, the biggest part of the canister explodes into the air,” Dust explained.

Back inside the classroom, Dust reviewed with the students what had occurred outside with the canisters and the chemical reaction that took place while the students completed their worksheets by writing down what they had learned.