Road salt

High school (ages 12+)
Environment & Earth

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/road-salt

1. What is the environmental degradation?
2. What does road salt do to help keep roads safe in winter?
3. Why do different salts like sodium chloride, calcium chloride, and magnesium chloride work at different cold temperatures?

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. What is the environmental degradation?Impacts include aquatic ecosystem salinization, soil degradation, vegetation damage, and infrastructure corrosion
2. What does road salt do to help keep roads safe in winter?Road salt lowers the freezing point of water, so ice melts at lower temperatures, keeping roads slick and safer.
3. Why do different salts like sodium chloride, calcium chloride, and magnesium chloride work at different cold temperatures?Each salt breaks up water molecules differently, and some salts can lower the freezing point more, so calcium chloride works in colder weather than sodium chloride.

Colligative Properties: Properties of solutions that depend on the ratio of the number of solute particles to the solvent molecules, such as freezing-point depression.
Ionic Dissociation: The process where an ionic compound breaks apart into ions when dissolved in a solvent like water.
Salinization: The process by which soluble salts accumulate in soil or water, often due to runoff from de-icing agents.