“Easy,” Alex muttered, counting quickly. “Two on the left. Three on the right. That’s wrong, right? That can’t be right.”

Alex took a breath. “Okay. Show me which oxygen atoms you’re counting on the right.”

Alex wrote: “I learned that being wrong out loud is faster than being wrong alone. Jordan caught my mistake in 10 seconds. It would have taken me 10 minutes to find it myself.”

Alex stared at the POGIL worksheet. The model showed a diagram of atoms before and after a reaction. The first question read: “How many oxygen atoms are on the left side? How many on the right side?”

Alex grabbed a pencil. “If we put a coefficient of 2 in front of the left molecule… then left side has four oxygens. Right side still has four. But now the hydrogens are off.”

Alex wanted to say “No, it’s not balanced,” and move on. But Jordan stopped.

Alex sighed. “I’m thinking we should skip to the last question and work backwards.”