Activities

Although many students have been exposed to the concept of density before reaching my Chemistry class, I always start the year with this POGIL-like activity. This helps students start on the same page with their density understanding before we dive into more advanced chemistry concepts. It also helps us develop group roles and classroom norms for group work.

Endothermic and exothermic reactions and processes are a common topic in chemistry class. This activity provides examples that can be done with household materials.

The purpose of this unit is to acquaint you, the student, with some research techniques and to involve you in the discovery learning process. You will be given a topic to work on and some guidelines for what you should accomplish. You will work in groups of three and share your results with the other members of your group.

This laboratory exercise accompanies the article "A guided group inquiry lesson on coordination compounds and complex ions". The laboratory serves as part of an extended exercise on the chemistry topic of coordination compounds and complex ions.

I expect that most high school chemistry teachers assign some type of laboratory related to types of chemical reactions including synthesis, decomposition, single replacement and double replacement reactions. I have used several published versions, but I am sharing my modifications. 

Orbital Viewer, written by David Manthey, is a fantastic program for displaying electronic orbitals. You can read more about the program here. I have my students use Orbital Viewer when learning about quantum numbers and their associated rules, electronic orbitals, and other quantum concept

Orbital Viewer, written by David Manthey, is a fantastic program for displaying electronic orbitals. The program has many different orbital-viewing options that are somewhat cumbersome to learn how to use. However, it is easy enough to learn how to use the program at a basic level. It i