Teaching and Learning Procedures
Prior to the Project
Learners complete a series of labs in which they learn how to observe and quantify physical properties of substances and observe chemical properties and changes.

Introduction
Post the Essential Question: How can we benefit from our accidents or mistakes? Share with learners an example of when you have made a mistake or accident that turned out to have positive outcomes. Share the circumstances and skills you used that turned it into a good thing. After sharing, have learners reflect on a time in their lives when a mistake or accident turned out to have positive outcomes. Ask learners to analyze the skills and processes they used in their situation.

Have learners find three situations in which a scientist used a mistake or accident to make our world a better place. (Alternative: print and photocopy examples from the Internet and distribute different examples to partners to discuss and later share with the class.)

The following are resources:

• http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/cancer/discoveries.html*
• http://science.howstuffworks.com/9-things-invented-or-discovered-by-accident.htm*

Conduct a class discussion about the meaning of serendipity. Discuss how serendipity relates to accidents and mistakes and to the situations the learners researched. Ask learners to write a journal response to the Focus Question, How have scientists in the past used their accidents or mistakes to make our world a better place? Help learners synthesize the research and establish generalizations that are based on the research they conducted.

Slime Lab
Present the following scenario to learners:

Scientists in a nearby lab created a slimy substance by accident when trying to invent a new kind of glue. Some of their glue samples spilled in a sink that had just been cleaned and contained borax residue. The accidental combination of the glue, borax, and water formed a new substance in the sink that might serve a purpose. As an accomplished inventor and scientist, you have been hired by Maves Inventive Science Products Incorporated (MISPI) to find an inventive use for the substance. Your idea needs to have the potential to make our world a better place and provide a profit for MISPI.

Discuss with learners the investigations necessary to derive physical and chemical properties of a substance. Assign partners to investigate all the physical properties of the individual substances that created the new material in the scenario. Each partner set receives 50 ml of borax, 50 ml of white glue, and 100 ml of water (the ingredients in the new substance). According to the learner’s need, hand out either the Slime Lab, Adapted Lab One, Adapted Lab Two, or Adapted Lab Three. Hand out and review the Physical Properties Rubric to help guide learners during the investigation.

Have learners recreate the accident in the scenario following the instructions for making slime.

Analyzing the Data
Compile measurable data from learner’s labs (temperature, mass, volume, and density) and hand out a data management chart of the class data for learners to analyze. Use the data chart and learners’ analysis to facilitate a class discussion on the interpretations that learners make. Emphasize any thinking contributed by the learners that explains relationships among mass, volume, and density.

Show learners how conclusions from data can be represented through graphs. Instruct learners to create two graphs based on their own conclusions, using the data from the class chart.

Have learners exchange lab write-ups to conduct a peer review using the Physical Properties Rubric. Assess the learner’s work as well from a teacher perspective using the same rubric. Provide further teaching if necessary.

Divide learners into groups of four to create product management teams. Instruct each team to brainstorm at least 50 different ideas based on the physical and chemical properties observed from the lab conducted before. Tell teams they must come to consensus on the two best marketable ideas from their list.

Explain that each team needs to design two experiments for each of the two ideas selected for a total of four experiments. Instruct each team member to pick one of the four experiments to do at home individually and be ready to share their results with their group next class. Ask the question, How do you set up a scientific experiment? After listening to learner’s responses, present a mini lesson on setting up an experiment if necessary. Pass out the Experiment Process Rubric along with the Experiment Checklist and instruct learners to consult this rubric and checklist before, during, and after the experiment process so they may understand the criteria for a successful experiment.

Sharing Results from Experiments
Have learners assess each other’s experiment write-ups using the Experiment Checklist.

During the time learners are assessing each other’s experiments, conference with each team using the Conference Questions. Use the Experiment Process Rubric as a basis for assessing their experiments informally and to discuss how ideas and experiments can be improved. Remind learners to save this experiment work so it can be used as a comparison to their final experiment later.

Tell learners you are role-playing as a representative from the company and you have been directed to read their brainstorm lists and pick the one idea in which they will do their final experiments. This may or may not be the one they picked as part of their final two. Pick a different idea for each team so each project will be different per class.

Once the final idea has been selected, each team must design two new experiments (or if it is an idea they had already selected as their final two previously, then they can modify those experiments and make them more sophisticated). 

Give teams time to design and modify their final two experiments. Explain that two people from each team will conduct one of the experiments and the other two team members will conduct the second experiment. Each partner set will complete their experiments individually to see if they can validate each other’s data. 

Using Data to Persuade
Allow teams time to share their final experiment results, checking to see if their data and conclusions match their corresponding partner’s data. Have teams repeat the peer review process they used with their first experiments again using the Experiment Checklist, noting what areas have improved between the first and the second experiment.

Meet again with each team. During the conference, have learners share their assessments and reflections on how they have improved. Assess their second experiment formally using the Experiment Process Rubric.

During the meeting, also give feedback on their product idea and whether or not the experiment data from each partner set has proven their idea will work for the intended purpose. Use the information gleaned from the conferences to adjust teaching.

Deliver a mini-lesson on effective slogans and logos. Show examples of well-known product labels and have learners distinguish between different types of information that are given on labels for products (technical, scientific, directions, advertising, warnings, etc.). Give teams time to brainstorm a logo and slogan for their product idea. Explain that even though each person creates a unique label, everyone on the team must use the same slogan and logo design.

Collect labels from commercial products and have teams assess the labels with the Using Data to Persuade Rubric. Remind learners to consult the rubric and Label Checklist often when creating labels.

Presentations
Give learners time to present individual labels in their teams and instruct learners to assess each other’s labels using the Label Checklist. Assess each label formally with Using Data to Persuade Rubric.

Have each learner write a reflection journal entry on the Focus Question, In what ways can science methods and procedures help you accomplish a goal? Encourage learners to think about the scientists (and the products they discovered) from their research in the beginning and compare the process they have gone through in the past weeks. Have them also write about the team process and the benefits and disadvantages of working in a team.

Optional: As a final assessment on the basic properties of matter specifically, have learners take a Performance-Based Assessment to determine if they can transfer their learning to a new situation. Adjust future teaching according to the results.