Air is a real substance for year 8 class

[NDbogan]

Homework Statement

So I'm teaching a year 8 (12 year olds) class on air or the properties of air. Does anyone have any ideas of what I should tell them or how to explain these properties in a understandable way?

Homework Equations

In the document that I have been given it says that I must teach these following things:

Explain that air is a real substance that occupies space
Recall that a body of air has measurable weight.
Recall that air exerts considerable pressure on the surface of all things in it.

The Attempt at a Solution

I will be doing a series of experiements to show these things, eg. turning a beaker upside down and push into water, weighing an almost fully inflated basketball then weighing it again after it is fully inflated, a glass filled with water place cardboard over the top and turn it upside down.

They will answer some questions on these experiements and try come up with some general rules explaining what has happened. Then I will go through what they should have seen and why what they saw occured.

I have attached the powerpoint notes that I would like to use but I feel like there should be more I'm telling them but I don't know what.

All help appreciated!

 

[ideasrule]

Is this a typical grade 8 class, or a remedial course? If the former, I really don't think you have to explain to 12-year-olds that air is a real substance that takes up space. Grade 8 curriculums usually explain the particle theory and use it as a foundation to explain the properties of matter. This includes the 3 phases, phase transitions, and the properties of gases. For example, "pressure is caused by the collision of randomly-moving gas particles onto the container's walls" would be one of the concepts that they need to understand. "Gases are easily compressible because the particles are far apart, so inter-particle interactions are weak" would be another.

I think you should look at the course curriculum to see what they already know, then use it as a foundation to explain the properties of gases.

 

[NDbogan]

Thanks, some of them really do find it hard to understand so just related it all back to states of matter and did a number of labs. However some of them were quite prepared for kinetic theory, etc.
As a student teacher, my university supervisor was impressed.