Reactants and Products
EAL
8 to 11, 12 to 14
Science
Chemical reactions Intermediate / Advanced
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A pair of worksheets that learners use in a collaborative activity to work out the reactants and products in a variety of scientific experiments. They then use this information to write the word equations to the reactions.
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A PowerPoint presentation that gives the answers to the work on the worksheet
You will need:
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One worksheet for each learner
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Access to a projector for the PowerPoint presentation
You will need to:
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Photocopy the worksheets. Make sure when you give them out that the learners are in pairs with one having worksheet A and the other having worksheet B
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To know some of the factors that show a chemical reaction has taken place
 To know the difference between reactants and products and to be able to identify them in a variety of situations
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To be able to write some word equations

Describing

Explaining
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Passive: is formed / was added etc.
 I know … because …
This project and its actions were made possible due to co-financing by the European Fund for the Integration of Third-Country Nationals © British Council 2014

EAL

Justifying
 I think it’s the reactant/product because…
 It must be the reactant/product because…
 It’s the reactant/product because…
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Chemicals: methane, oxygen, carbon dioxide, water, iron sulphate, iron, sulphuric acid, hydrogen, sodium chloride, sodium hydroxide, hydrochloric acid, nitric acid, sodium carbonate and sodium nitrate.
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Conjunction: because
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whole class

one to one or small group
What to do
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Set up the PowerPoint presentation and hand out the worksheets. Learners work independently initially and identify either the reactants or product for the cake and then answer the question. The answers can then be checked on the
PowerPoint and the learners then work in pairs on the equation for the cake.

After identifying the reactants and products in the experiments, learners check their answers with their partner. This is a collaborative activity. The PowerPoint gives some suggestions for the types of phrases they could use. It is important to check that the correct reactants and products have been found before moving on to writing the word equations.
Other ideas for making the best use of this resource
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If learners find the concept of the passive difficult, they could be asked to reverse the sentences. For example,
‘iron is added to sulphuric acid’ becomes
‘when you add iron to sulphuric acid.’ This could then lead to a discussion of the differences between formal and informal language and which is most appropriate for writing science experiments.

It is likely that this resource will be used as part of a topic on chemical reactions.
Therefore, the teacher could introduce experiments in future lessons with similar chemicals to those on the work sheet and ask learners to identify the reactants and products.
This project and its actions were made possible due to co-financing by the European Fund for the Integration of Third-Country Nationals © British Council 2014