Summary

In this activity, students will be challenged to solve a set of scrambled word puzzles. Each scrambled word corresponds to the name of a common piece of chemistry laboratory equipment. After solving each puzzle, students will use designated letters from each word to solve a riddle.

Grade Level

High and Middle School

Objectives

By the end of this activity, students should be able to

• Identify the name of equipment commonly found in chemistry labs.

Chemistry Topics

This activity supports students’ understanding of 

• Laboratory equipment

Time

Teacher Preparation: minimal

Lesson: 20 minutes

Materials

• Student handout

Safety

• No specific safety precautions need to be observed for this activity.

Teacher Notes

• This activity was highlighted in the ChemFun section of the September 2024 issue of Chemistry Solutions.
• It was designed to be a fun, short activity to help student familiarize themselves with the names of common lab equipment that is used in chemistry.
• It could be used as part of an introductory chemistry unit at the beginning of the school year, or it might be used at the end of the unit. Alternatively, it could be a fun challenge for students to complete when finished an assessment or assignment early.
• When students solve the scrambled words, the letters that appear in the shaded spaces will be needed to solve the riddle at the bottom of the handout. Those letters are used in the order that they appear, starting with the first shaded letter from question 1 as the first letter needed in the riddle. The second letter needed for solving the riddle comes from question 2, and so on. Note that some scrambled words have more than one shaded letter, but again they are used in the order that they appear in order to properly solve the riddle.
• An Answer Key document has been provided for teacher reference.