The 20 million year journey of a carbon

LO: To demonstrate understanding of the journey of a carbon atom from

Dinosaur to Toy Dinosaur

So this lesson:

• You will be:

• Making a cartoon• Writing a creative story• Drawing a poster

• You will explain how a carbon atom has gone from the dinosaur through each stage and is made into a polymer plastic toy.

The journey?

• Dinosaur dies in swamp• Swamp forms crude oil• Crude oil removed after millions of years.• Crude oil is a mixture of long and short chain alkanes.• Fractional distillation to separate fractions.• Cracking to make useful shorter chain products from

longer chains.• Making polymers from short chain alkene monomers.• The plastic toy dinosaur is here!• How can we dispose of him?

How will we know if this task has worked?

• We will mark each others work.

• High marks awarded for clear explanations of the science behind each stage.

• You will need to use your books or text books to explain in DETAIL each step.