Articles

JCE 98.02 February 2021 Issue Highlights

Mary Saecker | Sat, 02/13/2021 - 10:28

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The February 2021 issue of the Journal of Chemical Education is now available online to subscribers. Topics featured in this issue include: classic demonstrations, teaching during COVID-19, encouraging future scientists, games for teaching organic chemistry, student understanding of bonding, project-based learning, safety, computer-aided instruction, scientific literature, curriculum innovations, examining assessment, material science, research experiences, laboratory experiments, from the archives: teaching with household materials.

Journey with Standards Based Grading with Chad Husting

Deanna Cullen | Thu, 02/11/2021 - 12:57

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Chad Husting presented in a ChemEd X Talk and spoke about how he has transitioned to standards based grading during a pandemic! He shared some tips that have solved many of the problems that teachers struggle with including having a mix of face to face and virtual students and keeping up with late work, make-up work and missing assignments! You can watch the edited recording of Chad's Talk here.

The Disappearing Rainbow Demonstration - A colourful variant using red cabbage extracts

Iain Smellie | Mon, 02/08/2021 - 13:06

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This demonstration offers an alternative to the disappearing rainbow demonstration using readily accessible materials.

Formative Assessment Using Nearpod with Michael Farabaugh

Deanna Cullen | Thu, 02/04/2021 - 17:34

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Some of the challenges associated with virtual instruction include connecting with students and checking for understanding in real time. On February 2nd, Michael Farabaugh presented a ChemEd X Talk about how he uses the interactive features of Nearpod to create formative assessment items that provide valuable feedback and facilitate student participation. You can watch the edited recording of Michael's Talk and access the lesson he shared during the presentation here.

Bubbly BBs and Vaccinated Mentos: Chemical Illustrations to Promote Public Health Measures

Dean Campbell | Mon, 02/01/2021 - 10:35

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The authors revisit "flattening the curve" demonstrations published during 2020 to see how they could represent the impact of vaccinations on the COVID 19 battlefront. These demonstrations do not demonstrate the mechanisms of vaccines themselves, but are rather analogies to their potential effect on a population. In these analogies, gas production still represents illness, but this time people are represented by objects added to the solutions which either enable gas production (unvaccinated individuals) or do not enable gas production (vaccinated individuals). These simple experiments are best used as stand-alone demonstrations, and links to videos are included in this writeup.