Author(s): Aline Garabedian

How Does Temperature Affect Particle Motion and Enzyme Activity?

Students will investigate how temperature affects particle motion by increasing kinetic energy, and how this impacts enzyme activity in chemical reactions.

How Can We Model Particle Movement Using Temperature?

1. If possible, take students outside and instruct students they will represent sugar particles in different states.
2. Divide students into three groups: hot, room temperature, cold, and have students stand on the startline.
3. Instruct the “hot” group to run as fast as they can to the finish line. The “room temperature” group will jog to the finish line, while the “cold” group will walk.
4. On your signal, each group will run, jog or walk to the finish line according to their “temperature,” simulating  how particles move at different speeds based on temperature.
5. After the race, return back to the classroom.
6. Ask students which group reached the finish line first and why. Emphasize that temperature dictates kinetic energy, which affects the speed of particles; particles move faster at higher temperatures, but slower in lower temperatures.

How to work on it:

1. Ask students to open the simulation which represents a reaction pot of a catalyzed-mediated reaction.
2. Students will work independently/in pairs to adjust the temperature slider. They should observe and record their findings on an associated lecture worksheet on the following: how increasing and decreasing temperature affects the speed of particles and catalysts, and what happens to catalysts when the temperature gets too high, and what range of temperature do the catalysts stop working.
3. Debugging the Catalyst: InIntroduce the debugging scenario, where there is an issue with the code affecting how the enzyme behaves when the temperature slider is adjusted. The issue lies with the catalyst: this specific catalyst only works by binding two reactants at a time, but the code causes all reactants to come together at once. Ask students to debug the code and fix this issue to ensure the catalyst works as intended.
4. Beyond this, ask students to code what happens to the reaction beyond temperatures where the catalyst has denatured.
5. When coding, students should know to include conditional statements, variables and loop functions.

The Consolidation Portion:

Relating back to the hook: Ask students to complete an exit ticket worksheet or respond via Slido to the following question: A tea bag has been placed in cups of water at different temperatures. You notice that the speed at which the colour changes varies. Which temperature will cause the colour to change the slowest, which will cause it to change the fastest?

Further resource information:

Grade(s): 12

Main Subject: Chemistry: Energy Changes and Rates of Reaction

Other integrated subjects: Biology: Biochemistry

URL Link: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1136453325

Tags: Particles, particle motion, temperature, catalyst, enzyme, catalyst-mediated reaction, kinetic energy