An easy macroscopic lecture demonstration of the effect of temperature on the rate is to take three glow sticks and three beakers into the lecture. Place beakers side by side. Place room temperature water in one beaker, ice water in the second and very hot water in the third. Place a glow stick in each beaker and ask students to predict what the difference will be. Leave equilibrating while you do something else, then come back and turn off the room lights. Discuss in terms of collisions and chemiluminescence.
To emphasise the quantitative aspect of the first order decay process, you can use a demonstration on the visualizer – take 40 M&Ms and place them face up (the ‘M’ up) in a clear Tupperware container. This is the population at t=0. Ask a student volunteer to come and shake the container (gently) for 3 seconds and remove the M&Ms that are now face down – the remaining population is recorded as t1/2 on a graph.
