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The chemistry of silver and the process in which silver becomes tarnished is explored. Take a new look at an old JCE Classroom Activity.
The Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC) is now accepting applications for our 2016 Research Experience for Teachers (RET) program, June 20 - August 5. RET participants spend seven weeks conducting research in GLBRC labs and develop related education materials to bring back to their classrooms. Included is a $7000 stipend. We are recruiting four teachers to work on the following projects at UW-Madison:
The Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC) is pleased to announce the 2016 Bioenergy Institute for Educators to be held June 20-24 at UW-Madison. Bioenergy is an exciting area of research and development and can provide excellent opportunities for engaging students while teaching core concepts in biology, biotechnology, chemistry, environmental science, and agriculture. Join us for an intensive 5-day program to learn about the latest developments in bioenergy research and high-quality, NGSS-aligned materials to use with students.
In my IB Chemistry class, my seniors were finishing up independent investigations for their Internal Assessment a few weeks ago when something cool happened. One of my students was using silver nitrate and potassium chromate for a titration. This is notable to the story here because the endpoint is marked by the formation of silver chromate as a precipitate, with a deep reddish color. I overhead the student showing his reaction to another student, with both of them commenting on the cool colors involved.
I’m a first year AP chemistry teacher. My emotions swing from fear of inadequacy to confusion in pacing to acute awareness of the number of years since college chemistry to desperation in grading 55 lab notebooks to exhaustion with inexperience. Honest truth: I'm studying. I'm studying a lot.
This past summer our conversations turned to, “How can we improve our instruction to try and prevent the initial misunderstanding?” We had all read Dorothy Gabel’s article Improving Teaching and Learning Through Chemistry Education Research: A Look to the Future. We were intrigued by the author's description of the three fold system of representing concepts in chemistry.
I hate to sound like a broken record but I used two activities from Grand Valley State Target Inquiry Program that worked amazingly well and had a great "flow". Chad Bridle wrote two inquiry activities that dovetail together. The first is "Change You Can Believe In". Students are presented first with nine cards that are particulate drawings of changes that occur in matter.
Stoichiometry is arguably one of the most difficult concepts for students to grasp in a general chemistry class. Stoichiometry requires students to synthesize their knowledge of moles, balanced equations and proportional reasoning to describe a process that is too small to see. Many times teachers default to an algorithmic approach to solving stoichiometry problems, which may prevent students from gaining a full conceptual understanding of the reaction they are describing.
