Often at the beginning of a topic, students either observe a demonstration or watch a video or are given a description of a discrepant event. After sufficient materials have been covered, they are challenged to explain it.
However, unlike in MYP science, their write-ups aren’t graded according to any specific criteria. Some times the discrepant event write-up may be graded and contribute towards their final grade just as a quiz would. Some times, it may lead to a design investigation. What a given Discrepant Event requires is made clear at the time it is demonstrated.
Regardless, Discrepant Events on this blog contain questions to guide the students arrive at a solution.
IGCSE year 1 (Form 4) Discrepant Events are labeled F4 and year 2 (Form 5) F5.
Expectations for discrepant events that are common to both forms are different, as will be evident from the accompanying questions.
Form 4 Discrepant Events
- Magical Candle: About gaseous behavior.
- Plastic Bottle Canons: An observation and deduction exercise about elements in the periodic table.
- Water Bottle Explosion: About state of matter, energy and pressure.
- Uncanny Can: About state of matter.
- Dancing Coin: About state of matter.
- Rubbery Egg: About state of matter.
- Hair Brain Chemistry: An observation and deduction exercise on the patterns of reactivity.
- Fun with Liquid Nitrogen: About energy and state of matter.
Form 5 Discrepant Events
- Plastic bottle Canons: An observation and deduction exercise about elements in the periodic table and Stoichiometry (Quantitative Chemistry).
- Magical Beakers: About acid-base chemistry.
- Magical Crystals: About ion-exchange/precipitation/double displacement reaction.
- Gunpowder: Ideal Mixture: About Stoichiometry (Quantitative Chemistry)
- Sugar Daddy…with Flare: About Redox Reactions and Stoichiometry (Quantitative Chemistry)
- Cracking Crackers: About redox reactions.
Enjoy!
