Resources by TEMI

Chameleon bubbles

Chameleon bubbles are formed when a sodium alginate solution is dropped into a calcium chloride solution.  The bubbles are filled by an acid‐base indicator solution; so, adding the beads to acids or bases leads to colour changes inside the bubbles by diffusion and pH change. Students can learn about acids, bases,...

Chemical garden

The chemical garden is a well‐established experiment from the chemistry of salts, solubility, diffusion, and solutions. The nice thing is that if metal salts are put in sodium water glass solution, it can lead to an effect reminiscent of plants growing. This growing process can be observed and analysed. In the end...

Chemical seesaw

A balance is set up with two pieces of iron wool. One piece is set alight: it appears to be getting smaller but, mysteriously, the balance tips the other way.

Curriculum links include chemical...

Chi wheel

Can people really move objects through the power of their mind? In this lesson, students witness the amazing chi wheel, which claims to work by focusing chi energy. Students test hypotheses to obtain scientific explanations about how it really works.

The activities allow students to explore why hot fluids...

Clock reaction

Two translucent liquids are mixed. At first, nothing happens: the resulting solution is still translucent. Suddenly, with no warning, the solution turns blue-black all at once.

Curriculum links include redox reactions, rate of reaction, kinetics

Closer but colder

Because of the shape of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun, it is farther away from the Sun in July than it is in January. Still, we have colder days in January than in July. How is this possible? Through this mystery, students will investigate the orbit of the Earth around the Sun and its influence on solar energy...

Curved light

In this activity students investigate the mystery of a light beam which seems to bend.  Students can investigate:

• Qualitative behaviour of light  when the medium in which it propagates changes its refraction index. 
• Quantitative evaluation of the behaviour of light in refraction by means of...

Disappearing lab report

This mystery deals with a laboratory report in which the written results suddenly vanished. The students need to find out how the writing vanished,  how to recover the vanished data, and what the secret of the pen is.

Curriculum links include ...

Eating nails

In this investigation, students extract iron from a breakfast cereal and consider how our bodies are able to digest iron by looking at its reactions with hydrochloric acid.

Face on Mars

In the 1970s astronomers took an image of a region of the surface of Mars called “Cydonia“ which resembled a face.   ...