Today, my cooperating teacher set $36 on fire!
Discrepant events are a great way to get students engaged in a lesson or unit. She introduced stoichiometry today, and for you chemistry folks out there (Claire...lol) lots of kids hate this! In the demo, Propanol is mixed with water, the money is soaked in the solution, and then lit on fire. The alcohol burned giving off CO2 and leaving the dollar saturated with water. This demonstration definitely motivated students to participate in class, since we used the actual reaction to do example problems on stoichiometry. Having something concrete can increase the value of a lesson for students tremendously.
I get to teach this lesson tomorrow, and am really looking forward to it!
Awesome! I still remember a Political Sciemce class from 1988 that the prof burnt a $20.
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