Lesson Notes By Weeks and Term v4 - JHS 2

Lesson Video

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Performance objectives

• Identify different types of mixtures.
• Describe methods used to separate mixtures.
• Perform separation processes like filtering, sieving, and distilling.

Lesson summary

In our daily life in Ghana, we often meet mixtures: sand and stones at a building site, palm oil and water in soup, gari mixed with groundnuts, muddy water after rain, and salt dissolved in water. Many jobs and home activities require us to separate mixtures to get useful materials—e.g., getting clean water, producing salt, refining local gin (akpeteshie) by distillation, or separating grains from chaff. This lesson helps learners to design and perform separation processes (e.g., sieving, filtration, decantation, evaporation, distillation, magnetism) and to report findings using drawings and written work, as required by Indicator B8.1.1.1.2.

Lesson notes

A. What is a material? What is a mixture? Material: anything we use or make things from (water, wood, plastic, salt, sand, iron). Pure substance: made of only one type of particle (e.g., pure water, pure salt, pure iron). Mixture: two or more substances mixed together without chemical bonding. Each substance keeps its properties. Example: sand + salt, oil + water, air, gari + sugar.

Important idea: Because no new substance is formed, mixtures can be separated by physical methods. B. Types of mixtures (helps us choose a method) Heterogeneous mixture: components are not evenly mixed; you can often see parts. Examples: sand and stones, oil and water, gari and groundnuts. Homogeneous mixture (solution): evenly mixed; components not easily seen. Examples: salt solution, sugar solution, air. C. Properties used in separation We choose a method based on differences in: Particle size (sieving, filtration) Solubility (dissolving then filtering; evaporation/crystallisation) Density (decantation, separating funnel) Magnetism (magnet) Boiling point / volatility (evaporation, distillation) Sublimation (some solids turn directly to gas on heating—less common at JHS level)

D. Separation methods (with Ghanaian examples and step-by-step reasoning) 1) Handpicking / Sorting Used when: components are large and easily seen. Example: removing stones from beans. Reason: particle size and appearance differ. 2) Sieving Used when: solids have different particle sizes. Example: separating sand from stones, or bran from flour. How it works: smaller particles pass through holes; larger ones remain.

Procedure (simple): Put mixture into sieve. Shake gently over a tray. Collect materials separately.

Evaluation guide

• Perform activities such as distilling, filtering, sieving and others to
• separate different kinds of mixtures and present a report on your
• findings using drawing and written work. Creativity and Innovation (CI), Critical
• Thinking and Problem Solving (CP),