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ChemEd X articles address topics in chemical education ranging across the entire spectrum of the chemical sciences.

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pencil drawing of 3 beakers with varying degrees of concentration
Solutions and Concentration
// Monday, April 13, 2020 • ACCT Admin
The solutions and concentration formative assessment (FA) task asks students to figure out what concentration means by comparing three solutions that they make. This FA targets structure-properties relationships because it intends to explore students’ thinking about what makes solutions behave differently.
nutrition label
Dietary Calories
// Monday, April 13, 2020 • ACCT Admin
The dietary calories formative assessment (FA) asks students to do an energy survey to probe how students think about energy in their diets. The FA task reveals students’ thinking about structure-property relationships and chemical mechanism by getting students to look at food labels to try to figure out where in the ingredients the calories come from.
face of young person smelling orange flower
Perfume Smells
// Monday, April 13, 2020 • ACCT Admin
The Perfume Smells formative assessment asks students to identify trends in the ingredients of perfumes and developing connections between scents and chemical structure.
Reducing Phosphorus
// Monday, April 13, 2020 • ACCT Admin
The “reducing phosphorus” formative assessment (FA) targets the benefits, costs, and risks of transforming matter. The chemical of interest in this task is phosphorus, which causes algal blooms when the concentrations in waterways are too high.
3 stick figures
Caffeine Catastrophe!
// Monday, April 13, 2020 • ACCT Admin
The Caffeine Catastrophe formative assessment (FA) asks students to explain why caffeine consumption can be lethal to one person but not to another. This FA targets benefits-costs-risks thinking. The FA focuses on the relationship between toxicity and chemical quantities with a specific emphasis on lethal dose.
gas exchange at the particulate level
Gas Exchange
// Monday, April 13, 2020 • ACCT Admin
The gas exchange formative assessment (FA) task asks students to interpret a representation to figure out the movement of atoms due to differences in concentration gradient. The FA targets chemical causality and chemical mechanism within the topic of diffusion of gases in respiration.
pitcher of sweet juice and another of unsweetened juice
How Sweet it is
// Monday, April 13, 2020 • ACCT Admin
This formative assessment (FA) task targets chemical identity. The main idea of this formative assessment is solution concentration. This FA is an easy way to get students interested in the topic of concentration because making juice is accessible to all learners.
student working at lab counter
Cool Off Challenge
// Sunday, April 12, 2020 • ACCT Admin
The “Cool Off” challenge is a formative assessment tool for learning about how students think about chemical causality. It has been tested with middle school and high school students, and with preK-12 science teachers. It provides participants the opportunity to think creatively about a science challenge, and then test their predictions in the lab.
Structure and motion of matter (SAMM) survey
// Saturday, April 11, 2020 • ACCT Admin
The structure and motion of matter (SAMM) survey is a 15-minute, open-ended formative assessment tool that probes how students think about the structure and dynamics of a gaseous mixture. It has been tested in middle school, high school, and university chemistry classes, in both English and Spanish.
car at gas station
GoKart cognitive interview
// Saturday, April 11, 2020 • ACCT Admin
The GoKart cognitive interview is a formative assessment that is designed to be a one-on-one conversation between a teacher and a student. It provides insight to the teacher about how the student thinks about relationships between chemical nature and properties, and how the student reasons about consequences.