This lesson is designed for the NEW AQA Trilogy Chemistry GCSE, particularly the ‘Structure & Bonding’ SoW.
 
This lesson begins with a description of the new field of nanoscience and the types of industries where this may be important. Pupils are then given a set of questions which they must complete using a video, once the students have answered the questions they can assess their work using the mark scheme provided.
 
Pupils will now focus on the importance of surface are to volume ratio when considering nanoparticles, students will calculate the surface area to volume ratio of a cube that is 100cm x 100cm, 10cm x 10cm and 1cm x 1cm. By doing this they can see that the smaller the particle the higher the surface area to volume ratio, this is an important property in nanoparticles - particularly for their use as catalysts. Students are then asked to prove that the same applies for a cube that is 10m x 10m and 0.1cm x 0.1cm. All work from these tasks can be self or peer assessed using the answers provided in the PowerPoint presentation.
 
The next part of the lesson is a task for pupils to consider the application of nanotechnology, pupils will each be given a card of information describing one application of nanoparticles. They will need to walk around the room and discuss the applications with each other to complete a table in their books.
 
The last task is for pupils to consider the potential risks involved with the uses of nanoparticles in everyday products, students should think > pair > share their ideas about how the industries using nanoparticles might be posing risks to people and the environment. Once the class has discussed these potential risks you can outline some examples using the PowerPoint presentation.
 
The plenary is for pupils to pick a task, either write a twitter message or summarise what they learnt in the lesson in three sentences.