The Hydrogen and Oxygen Love Story

As a science teacher I would try to find unique ways to present science concepts. One concept is the way water can be broken into hydrogen and oxygen through the process of electrolysis. There is laboratory equipment specifically designed to do this with safety, but such equipment can be expensive. This is not an experiment anyone should do that does not know how to maintain a safe environment so generally I would do this as a demonstration only. I would set up the equipment and then let students see the equipment generate bubbles of oxygen and hydrogen. I have even "exploded" a small amount of the collected hydrogen and demonstrated the way that an ember of a burning splint can burst into flames when placed into a small amount of oxygen. These make great demonstrations, but only when you know what you are doing.

What essentially happens is that when electricity is sent through water it can break the oxygen bond to hydrogen. Bubbles of hydrogen will form on one electrode and bubbles of oxygen will from on the other electrode. We are going to hear more about this process as we move toward the use of hydrogen fuel cells as a source of energy.

It is important that everyone understands that when you are working with electricity around water you may have a very dangerous situation, if you are producing hydrogen which is explosive you have a potentially very dangerous gas being formed, and the oxygen produced supports combustion and is also potentially a dangerous gas.

After my demonstration and my lecture about this process I would sternly warn students about the dangers of this process. I would also discuss the dangers of having automobiles that needed to stop at a station and get more "hydrogen". Even if we use small canisters of hydrogen gas that were replaced there is danger from the hydrogen. You of course can research this process. My goal here is different because after my demonstration I would hand out a fill in the blank worksheet which would be a fun activity that would test student retention and application of the concepts. One concept is that when hydrogen is exposed to an energy source while in the presence of oxygen it can explode back to water. With the proper equipment you can do this a show that two parts of hydrogen and one part of oxygen will combine to form water.

The fill in the blank concept is a description of hydrogen as being "in love" with oxygen and that a mad scientist has found a way to break this love triangle apart. The story follows:

The Hydrogen and Oxygen Love Story
=====================================
Once upon a time an Oxygen molecule (02) was floating around as a gas and found that it was not very happy next to other Oxygen molecules. In fact the atoms of oxygen wanted very much to _____(1)______ electrons with some other type of atom. While floating around oxygen would occasionally come near to a ______(2)______ atom. This atom had its first electron cloud filled with only _______(3)_______ electron. It also wanted to ______(4)_______ electrons. Oxygen said, "I have my 2P cloud only partly filled and I can share with ______(5)_______ hydrogen _______(6)________.
They lived happily being ________(7)________ for many years until one day a mad scientist put an _______(8)________ current into the ____(9)_____and the hydrogen told the oxygen that some mad _______(10)_______ was offering _______(11)______electrons and that it preferred to take the __(12)____ electrons rather than share. So _____(13)_____ and Hydrogen separated to become _______(14)________ collected by the mad ______(15)______. They vowed that if they ever met under the right conditions they would renew their ___________(16)________ relationship and settle down to become __(17)__ again.

Possible Words
============================================================
Water.... water...water...explosive...scientist...oxygen...gases...share...free...
free...scientist...electric...atoms...two...one...hydrogen... share...

====================================