By the end of the school year, everyone’s running low—on energy, time, and sometimes even lab supplies! If you’re looking for easy ways to review chemistry concepts without the stress of prepping elaborate labs, you’re in the right place. (Seriously, subscribe to my email list.)
These simple chemistry lab activities are low maintenance for you, require minimal chemicals, and still keep students engaged. Whether you’re wrapping up content, reviewing for a final, or just trying to make the last few weeks meaningful, these ideas are fun, hands on, and refreshingly doable. Trust me – I was doing most of them in an old art classroom with makeshift supplies.
And if you find yourself wishing you had more of these kinds of labs throughout the year, check out my Chemistry Lab Manual. It’s full of easy, low-prep labs (with a few classics sprinkled in) that span 15 units of study. You can use it now for end of year review and next school year to keep your sanity intact from day one.
How to Choose a Lab
There’s a few things to consider when building out your calendar and schedule for the last few days of science classes. Especially if you have a final exam to prepare for!
- It’s certainly best to focus on topics that your students struggle with. If your Acid Base unit was a breeze, you certainly don’t want to be spending time doing a titration!
- Consider the passage of time. If your Atomic Unit was 9 months ago, there are some potential gaps simply because it’s been a while. This is probably more true for things like average atomic mass, than it is for atomic structure. Atomic structure is part of nearly every chemistry lesson. Your students probably have a good handle on that. But isotopes may be a concept that’s been forgotten.
- What have you spiraled? Thinking again of isotopes – I review that in my Nuclear Unit. Which, I’m sure you know is the last unit I teach. (That’s because I teach “Chemistry is all about the electrons. Until you get to Nuclear.”) For my students and how I set up my curriculum, this isn’t something I’d spend time on.
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Atomic Candies
History and models of the atom is a very important concept to chemistry. It helps students to know that chemistry is based on indirect observations. Students come to learn that science is a body of knowledge that loads of people have contributed to and built upon over many, many years. But these atomic models aren’t revisited naturally in your content over the school year. After Bohr models and diagrams, the early stuff is easily forgotten. So if your students need a refresher I recommend the Atomic Candies lab at the end of your school year. All you’ll need is some sweet treats!
- A chocolate chip cookie
- A lollipop with a candy center
- A gum ball
- A layered jawbreak or Airheads Extreme (the idea is colorful layers)
- A marshmallow
Decide if you want 1 set of treats per student and how you want to distribute them. I usually sit at my kitchen table with ziplocks and create baggies the night before while watching something fun.
Your students are going to note prominent features of the atomic models and compare them to prominent features of the candies. Like the colored layers in a jawbreaker are kind of like the electron energy levels in a Bohr model! I have some “right” answers, but as long as students can justify their choice of which candy is paired to each model, I accept their answers. (And there’s another lesson in how scientists can back things up and give reasoning to their findings in different ways, and why we need the peer review process.) Get the lab here.
Average Atomic Mass of Candium
Like I mentioned, this is likely a topic your students haven’t seen or worked with for a while. And bringing candy into the classroom is always a win! In this activity, students work with a sample of “candium.” It’s really just three different size object of the same type. So three different sizes of M&Ms, three different sized pasta noodles, or something of the like. You can use coins, dried beans, pretzles… I like to grab movie theater candy boxes and get three different sized things. These function as three isotopes of the same element, “candium” “beanium” “pretzelium.” Your students do some simple math and boom! They’ve just re-learned average atomic mass. Plus, if you set this up “correctly” they can eat their chemical sample at the end of the lab. Get the lab here. Read more about how I set up this lab here.
Rutherford’s Gold Foil
Speaking of those forgotten atomic models, when I was teaching in New York, Rutherford’s experiment was always tested on the state final. So I found that this lab on the gold foil experiment was worth the time. It’s really fun to do. You use your Rutherford model made out of a hula hoop and a styrofoam ball suspended in the middle. Then your students throw alpha particles, (paper balls or ping pong balls) at the model and the class records the data. It’s a great lab to revisit during the year. It’s totally chemical free. Meaning the end of the year is a perfect time for this lab, when you’re running low on supplies. Get the lab here.
Periodic Table Guessing Game
Whether you want to use this lab for periodic table review, or save it for next year, you should click here to get it for free. Essentially, students work from a small pool of elements and have to ask their partner yes or no questions based on properties of elements to guess their partner’s element. It’s a great review of chemical and physical properties as well as periodic table trends. I like to use this lab as Periodic Table Unit review, but it works great at the end of the school year as well.
Removal of Sugar – Hydrate Lab
If your students need some work on their math skills before your final exam, this is a good lab for them at the end of the year. In this lab, you hand our bubble gum. Again, candy wins. Plus all you need in this lab is a balance, so it’s great when everybody starts packing things up at the end of the year. Your students will chew the gum to remove the sugar. They do percent error calculations comparing to the nutritional facts of the gum. It’s the same math your students would do if they dehydrated something like copper II sulfate pentahydrate. But you don’t have to break out all the equipment and chemicals. Get the lab here.
Sand & Salt
If separation of mixtures is needing some help, or perhaps lab procedures, this is a good one. You mix some samples of sand and salt (but make sure you know how much of each.) This lab will require the use of your lab equpiment. You’ll need to have the students dissolve the salt, filter out the sand, and then evaporate the water out, drying the salt. BUT this is a good lab for the end of the school year because it’s kind of laborous. It can help to bring back the review of lab equipment, procedures and safety. You can also stretch this lab out over a day or two if you simply need to chew up the clock. Get the lab here.
Freezing Point Depression Ice Cream
Want to have TONS OF FUN in the last days of your school year? Are you unafraid of messes? Do you have a good relationship with your custodial staff? If you answered “yes” take the time to make ice cream in your classroom. Yes, you need tons of supplies. Yes, it’s mentally and emotionally taxing, but you will have so much fun!
In this lab, ice is sprinkled with salt to dramatically drop the freezing point. A milk and sugar mixture is then slowly frozen and shaken in convert from milk to ice cream. It’s a simple lab in terms of the chemistry of it all. The materials, lab room and mess will certainly be a headache. Hey, if I get to “choose your hard” I’m picking the ice cream lab every time! It’s too fun to miss out on. Get the lab here.
Elephant’s Toothpaste
You can use this lab to review kinetics (catalysts), heat flow (endothermic and exothermic) or even how to run an experiment using multiple trials. In this lab yeast is used as a catalyst to remove oxygen from hydrogen peroxide. That oxygen will foam up dish detergent making a foam. The entire process releases a bunch of heat. It’s a really fun lab for the last days of school. Get the lab here.
Equilibrium Straws
This is the EASIEST lab there is. All you need is some graduated cylinders, water and straws. Water starts in one cylinder (reactants). Straws are used to swap water between two graduated cylinders (forward & reverse reactions) until equilibrium is reached. You can use this to review equilibrium, reversible reactions or even graphing. it’s one of my favorites because it’s just so easy. It really can’t be beat. Get the lab here.
Titration
If you have all your materials, or need to use up some expiring chemicals a titration is classic. This is on the list primarily for the review aspect. I’m not going to explain a titration to you, but here’s the benefits. Review of measurement and estimated digits, significant figures, titration calculations, acid base neutralization reactions, acid base indicators, lab safety and procedures… It’s especially good if you didn’t get to this during the school year, since it is a critical chemistry skill.
Polymerization Slime
Like the ice cream lab this one is a teacher headache that brings tons of smiles that make it worth it. In this lab, students are going to use glue and Borax solution to make slime. The glue is polymerized by the borax (a catalyst). This lab primarily is qualitative observations, which I know not every chemistry teacher loves. Honestly, it’s a way I have programmed into my curriculum for students to have fun. Plus they get to actually see an organic reaction. That’s not the easiest to do in a high school chemistry lab. (Especially in my old art classroom which was not a lab despite what admin tried to claim…) Get the lab here.
Half Life of a Skittle
This is something I would be doing at the end of the school year anyway, because Nuclear is always my last unit. BUT if you’re a rebel and teach Nuclear with or just after Atomic, this is a great end of year lab! Students have a sample of Skittles (or MMs or coins or anything double sided.) This represents atoms of a radioactive element. They shake them for the length of a half life (just a few seconds). Then they pour them out. The ones that are face up are stable and have decayed. The ones that are face down are still “radioactive” and go back to shaking.
If you do your Nuclear Unit at the end of the year, this is a good time for this lab just for the content, of course. But I have my students graph the decay of their “radioactive” sample. So it’s a good review of graphing if that’s a skill that needs some work! Get the lab here.
Fun or Practical? Choose Both!
You don’t have to choose between fun and practicality when it comes to end of year chemistry labs. These low-prep activities can help reinforce key concepts, help prepare for your final exam, and give students a chance to apply what they’ve learned. All without burning you out in the process! Because I know you’re running on fumes at this point. Having fun in the lab can be just what YOU NEED to make it through the last few weeks of the school year.
If you’re loving these kinds of low maintenance labs, you’ll definitely want to check out my Chemistry Lab Manual. It’s packed with simple, mostly chemical-free activities that are fun for students and easy on you. It covers 15 units of study, so while it’s perfect for wrapping up this year, it’ll also set you up for success all year long next school year. Grab it now, and you’ll be thanking yourself in August! Read more about the lab book here.
