• Quick retrieval from earlier learning (Reactants, products and word equations). Students answer on mini whiteboards.
• Show answers together and note who needs support in the main task.

1. Complete the word equation: copper + oxygen → ___ (magnesium oxide / copper oxide / carbon dioxide / copper carbonate) → copper oxidePrompt: A metal reacting with oxygen makes a metal oxide.
2. Why does a candle under a glass jar go out? (Glass puts out flames / The jar gets too heavy / The oxygen inside is used up / The wax turns into water) → The oxygen inside is used upPrompt: What does burning use from the air?
3. Word equations: which statement is NOT true? (Burning metal makes it lighter because mass is lost. / Incomplete combustion can produce carbon monoxide, a poisonous gas. / Reactants are written on the left of the arrow. / Thermal decomposition breaks a substance down using heat.) → Burning metal makes it lighter because mass is lost.Prompt: Which side of the arrow is which?

• Drop an antacid tablet in water (or show a clip) and ask whether a new substance is being made.
• Share the objective: Exothermic and endothermic reactions. Read the success criteria together.

• Work through the example out loud, saying why you do each step, not just what you do.
• Example: Is this exothermic or endothermic: thermal decomposition of calcium carbonate?
• Step 1: Endothermic reactions take in energy from the surroundings, so the temperature falls.
• Step 2: So the answer is: endothermic
• Answer: endothermic
• Pause after each step and ask a student to say what comes next.

• Do these together. Students try each step on whiteboards before you reveal it.
• Use the hints as prompts rather than giving the answer.

1. Is this exothermic or endothermic: an instant cold pack? (exothermic / endothermic) → endothermicPrompt: Does it give out heat or take heat in?
2. The temperature of a reaction mixture changes from 20 °C to 23 °C. What is the temperature change? (Use a minus sign for a fall.) → 3 °CPrompt: Change = final temperature − starting temperature.

• Students work on the student sheet. Circulate and check the first two answers of every student early.
• Students who finish: write a question of their own for a partner, with the answer.

The 8 questions are on the student sheet below, with answers in the key.

• Two questions on their own. Sort answers into got it / nearly / not yet to plan the next lesson.

1. Is this exothermic or endothermic: photosynthesis? (exothermic / endothermic) → endothermicPrompt: Does it give out heat or take heat in?
2. In an exothermic reaction, the energy of the products is… (lower than the energy of the reactants / higher than the energy of the reactants / exactly the same as the reactants / zero) → lower than the energy of the reactantsPrompt: Energy has been given out to the surroundings.

Free online practice with hints and printable worksheets for this skill: eurekami.com/science/grade-8.