Due to school cancellations and delays, teachers had to make the decision to remove or condense lesson plans and in Mrs. Katelyn Ellis’s, Science, Chemistry class, the class had to switch their plans of having a candy-making lab to a balancing reactions lab.

Mrs. Ellis had already been prepared for any unexpected issues before making her lesson plans for the semester, leaving extra class time for snow days like this.

“School delays can make things a lot harder on the students,” Mrs. Ellis said.

Mrs. Ellis normally has 2-3 labs per unit, but due to the cancellations, her classes were only assigned one lab instead of the normal amount. Compared to this balancing reactions lab that only took approximately 15-20 minutes, the candy-making lab was a lot more time consuming.

“I wanted students to practice lab skills with the Bunsen burners because they’ll be using it in college and practice balancing reactions,” Mrs. Ellis said.

During the Balancing Reactions lab, students used Bunsen burners to burn steel wool. As students put the steel wool over fire, sparks flew but the wool did not change much.

Even though the candy-making lab was cancelled, students still enjoyed doing the balancing reaction lab.

“I liked how the steel wool sparked when it was put over the flame,” Mackenzie Rudolph (10) said.

It still gave students the same insight that the candy-making lab would have, but the balancing reactions lab just took a lot less work and time.

“This lab was very educational and it was fun to do,” Matthew Reyes (10) said.