Teaching sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

15 minutes

Tune In: Lithium batteries

20 minutes

Find Out: What’s inside a lithium battery?

25 minutes

Take Action: Safety stickers

5 minutes

Reflection

Learning intentions

Students will:

apply their understanding of reaction types and reaction rates to analyse how lithium batteries are designed to control chemical reactions safely.

Success criteria

Students can:

explain how changes in reaction rate factors can lead to battery failure
describe how disposal products and services are designed to manage chemical risk and support sustainability.

Tune In: Lithium batteries

Step 1

Establish your students’ prior knowledge of batteries by asking them to think-pair-share what a battery is and how it works.

Discuss students’ responses and recap that a battery is stored, potential, chemical energy. When a battery is connected to a circuit, it facilitates a chemical reaction, causing ions to flow inside the battery and electrons to flow around the circuit. Ask your students if they know the difference between a lithium battery and other batteries.

Show your students this clip to further explore the difference between lithium-ion and lead-acid batteries:

Which Battery is Better: Lithium-Ion or Lead-Acid? – (youtube.com/watch?v=Qw_CeA95BHM)

Highlight that lithium batteries are smaller and lighter than other types of batteries, can provide large quantities of energy, and have the added benefit of being rechargeable.

Step 2

Organise the class into groups of 3–4 and provide each group with the Battery Sorting Activity Sheet. Instruct students to cut out the pictures of the devices on page 2 and then sort them into the 2 columns: devices that use lithium batteries and devices that use other batteries.

Discuss the groups’ answers as a class, asking students to justify their categorisation of the devices using the following questions:

What do all the devices that use lithium batteries have in common?
Which devices surprised you?

Find Out: What’s inside a lithium battery?

Step 1

Explain to your students that they will now investigate the chemical reaction taking place inside a lithium battery. Provide them with a copy of the Lithium Batteries Worksheet and ask them to complete page 1 of the worksheet while they watch this clip:

The Chemical Reaction inside a Lithium Battery (Branch Education – Watch from 4.07-4.51 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5McJw4KkG8)

Learning extension: Show your students this clip of a lithium battery being dissected Inside a battery (youtube.com/watch?v=-KAHiCb_8-s). Ask students to identify the different components of the battery as they are revealed. Remind them that the battery they are seeing has been discharged and that the chemical reaction is complete. What was surprising about the contents of the battery?

Step 2

Ask your students: What factors affect a chemical reaction?

They might suggest:

temperature
the presence of catalysts
surface area
concentration
activation energy

Considering the chemical reaction that occurs inside a lithium battery, several factors affect how this reaction discharges energy.

Instruct students to look at page 2 of their Lithium Batteries Worksheet. Group students into pairs and ask them to discuss and describe the role of 3 components in a lithium battery: the separator, the case, and the electrolyte. Clarify and explain the purpose of each component. Ask your students to complete their worksheet by responding to what would happen if this component was missing, damaged, experienced low temperatures, or experienced high temperatures.

Step 3

Bring the class back together to discuss their findings. Based on the discussion, create a list of risks associated with lithium batteries. Highlight that the primary risk with lithium batteries (and any stored energy) is the unwanted release of the energy, which can be caused by:

exposure to heat energy, facilitating the chemical reaction or causing physical damage
damage to the battery that causes the reactants to combine in unwanted ways, or breaches safety measures inside the battery
the unintended forming of a circuit, such as if the separator is damaged, or if the electrodes are unintentionally connected.

Step 4

Ask your students to identify scenarios in which these situations could occur. Ask them to consider when the battery is in storage (not being used), when a battery is in use (in a device), and when a battery reaches its end of life (and is discarded). They might suggest:

if a battery is thrown away in a metal bin and the electrodes come into contact with the metal
if a battery is swallowed
if a device (such as a phone) is left in a hot car
if batteries are stored together in a container
if a battery or a device is thrown away and is pierced or damaged by other rubbish
if a battery is collected from a bin in a waste truck and is crushed by the compression machinery

Learning support: Return to the Battery Sorting Activity and select 2–3 devices with lithium batteries. Ask your students, ‘How could the device be damaged in such a way that the battery would also be damaged? How might the battery in this device be exposed to high temperatures?’

Step 5

Emphasise to students that a battery poses the most risk when you don’t know it is there. Elaborate by explaining that when a user purchases, stores and uses a battery, they are aware that the battery is there and can take adequate precautions to manage the chemical risk. Return to the Battery Sorting Activity and recap the devices that contain a lithium battery. Ask your students, ‘If these devices were broken or obsolete, how would you get rid of them?’. Point out that if a battery is disposed of in a recycling bin or landfill bin, waste workers are not aware that a battery is in amongst the waste and are unable to take the correct precautions.

Take Action: Safety stickers

Step 1

Explain to students that they will now investigate how batteries are managed once they are no longer usable, to reduce any harm to people and the environment. Divide the class into groups of 2–3 and direct them to pages 3–4 of their Lithium Batteries Worksheet.

Step 2

Outline to students that their mission is to research how we can safely collect and manage batteries at the end of their lives. Their mission is to create a safety information sticker for a lithium battery. This sticker needs to:

explain the chemical risk of the battery
include a simple annotated diagram explaining the components of the battery
identify safe handling methods
instruct the user on how the battery should be managed once no longer in use, including how it should be stored, where it can be taken, and what precautions should be taken to manage the chemical risk.

The purpose of this sticker is to share scientific information with battery users, ensure the battery is disposed of correctly, and mitigate the risk posed by the chemical reaction. Guide students to use the following resources to help them design their safety information sticker:

Resource	Link
Bcycle: Australia’s official battery recycling scheme	bcycle.com.au
Recycle mate: Australia’s leading national recycling education platform	recyclemate.com.au
Planet Ark: Everything you need to know about recycling batteries	recyclingnearyou.com.au

Step 3

Once the students have had the opportunity to design their sticker, ask 2 groups to join together and share their ideas. Direct students to conduct a Think, Feel, Care for the other group's design, and to provide suggestions and feedback based on their responses.

Think: How does the user reading this sticker understand this system and their role within it?
Feel: What is the user’s emotional response to this system and to their position within it?
Care: What are the user’s values, priorities, or motivations that will make them want to participate in this system? How does this design appeal to this person?

Reflection

Discuss the following questions with your class, to reflect on what they have learnt and applied:

Who has responsibility for managing the risk of lithium batteries: the manufacturers, the users, or waste management organisations? Why do you think that?
How does your knowledge of chemical reactions and reaction rates help you understand the design of lithium batteries?
How does building and sharing scientific knowledge help us make decisions that keep us and the environment safe?

Reaction Rates and Lithium Battery Design

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Summary

Learning intentions

Success criteria

Lesson Guides and Printables

Lesson Details

Skills Required

Curriculum Mapping

Resources Required

UN Sustainable Development Goals

Additional Information

Related Professional Learning

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