Paris Cooperative High School teachers Angie Propst and Brett Block presented their students with a team-taught lesson crossing over their subject areas of Clothing and Chemistry to identify the fiber content of various types of fabric.

Propst, the creator of the lesson, wanted to further her Clothing classs existing investigation of fiber characteristics by adding a science inquiry component. Some of the fibers used were natural and others synthetic.

Students used the observable absorbency rate in dye and burn characteristics, together with an elimination chart, to determine each fabrics fiber content.

Students also observed how the burning is affected by treatment with a flame retardant made by Chemistry Club students in lab using boric acid and borax detergent.

Mixing this solution had to be done carefully due to the solubility of the boric acid. Aspects of solubility and supersaturated solutions were investigated by the Chemistry Club students.

This lesson promoted student to student learning as Chemistry and Clothing students were paired together. The importance of lab safety and the use of a controlled experiment were modeled by the Chemistry students. Clothing students shared the base knowledge used for deductive reasoning with the characteristics of synthetic fibers verses natural fibers and characteristics of weaves verses knits.

Due to the success of this lab, it will be incorporated into both the Advanced Chemistry and Clothing curricula.

Read more from the original source:
Clothing Chemistry: Mixing two classes proves successful