Flipping Pennies and Burning Candles: Adventures in Kinetics

In this Activity, students collect data to determine whether two processes, flipping pennies and burning small birthday candles, follow zeroth- or first-order rate laws. Students first collect data on the number of pennies remaining "heads up" after several successive tosses and then measure the mass of a burning candle over time. This Activity is inquiry-based and introduces reaction orders, determining reaction orders, and calculating simple kinetics. Instructors may wish to have students perform kinetics experiments involving chemical reactions after completing this Activity.