The Titanic Is Turning to Rust

The Titanic Is Turning to Rust (Science in the News)

More than 12,000 feet under the Atlantic, the wreck of the Titanic is slowly disappearing - and this one-page activity uses that story to teach one of the clearest chemical changes there is. The ship's iron reacts with oxygen in the seawater to form rust (iron oxide), a new reddish-brown substance. The color change and new substance are exactly the evidence of a chemical change, anchored to the 2025 3D scans of the wreck.

What's Included

• 1 student page: a short news story plus four cards (What's the Story? multiple choice, a fill-in reasoning chain with word bank, Cause & Effect matching, and a Why Does It Matter? sentence starter)
• 1 teacher key page with every answer, a sample response, the standards box, a clickable link to the source article, and a science-connection summary
• Letter-size PDF, no prep

How It Helps You Teach

• Anchors TEKS 6.6E in a real, current event students find fascinating
• Rust is a textbook chemical change - a color change and a new substance
• The article link supports media literacy and lets you show students the source

Pair It With

Part of a Chemical Changes set: Context Clues, Inferences, Science in the News, the Chemical or Physical? sort, and a Reading in Science. Check out our library for the rest.

Perfect for 6th grade physical science, a current-events science reading and reading comprehension activity, science literacy, and TEKS 6.6E / NGSS MS-PS1-2 review. Topics include: chemical changes, rust and corrosion, color change, new substance, and evidence of a chemical change.

Standards: TEKS 6.6E; NGSS MS-PS1-2; DCI PS1.B (Chemical Reactions). Part of the Daily Science series by Workybooks.