How does Temperature Affect the Solubility of CO2 in Water?

This short investigation from Carbo Europe explores how temperature affects the solubility of carbon dioxide in water.

Go To:

http://www.carboeurope.org/education/CS_Materials/CO2solubility.pdf

CarboSchools

Carbon science researchers and secondary school teachers invite young people to learn about local and global impacts of climate change, explore scientific research on the topic and act locally to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.

Notes From Our Reviewers

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Teaching Tips

The educator should identify the level of student understanding of CO2 and its impacts on and connections to global warming prior to doing the activity.

Students might also benefit from reviewing content/background on parent site prior to completing the experiment.

There is the potential for students to focus on the rate of tablet dissolution, thereby developing misconceptions about the objectives. It is important that the teacher is aware of this for the post-activity discussion.

The visual effect of warm and cold water temperature on the rate of CO2 solubility is a great way to debate the role of CO2 on climate change.

Extensions or variations to the experiments are described throughout the experiment.

About the Science

This experiment relates the solubility of CO2 in sea water to varying water temperatures.

Increasing CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere leads to increasing air temperatures and, consequently, warming of the oceans.
Students set up an experiment using effervescent tablets and readily-available lab tools to visualize how CO2 is more soluble in cold water than warm water. Students hypothesize the global implications.

For educators, the content connections on the topic can be found on the CarboSchools website http://www.carboeurope.org/education/schoolsweb.php.

Comments from expert scientist: The strengths are that this is a simple activity, it is cheap and had very clear results, and yet it can be used to explain quite complex topics.

About the Pedagogy

Well-designed and easy-to-follow instructions to this experiment. The sketches and photos of students doing the activity will help students identify with the setup.

The "Notes" section is extremely helpful in guiding the students' interpretation of the results.

The overall basic design of this activity could benefit from identifying and adding learning objectives as well as addressing the common misconceptions about global warming and rising levels of CO2 levels contributing to global warming. Teachers can add that information when they present the lesson.

Technical Details

Lesson could benefit from more scaffolding - elaborating on anecdotal notes on CO2 levels contributing to climate change built into the lesson for students to reflect on rather than within another link/site: http://www.carboeurope.org/education/schoolsweb.php