Cool 300 Year Old Technology and some Online Resources...
What am I doing to help kids achieve?
What am I doing to help kids achieve?
You can perform an orange to black chemistry demonstration using materials commonly found in stores. The reaction appears to be similar to the Old Nassau reaction, but uses greener reagents. This is a great demonstration to do around Halloween time.
Modeling InstructionTM is specifically designed so students construct meaning without being told what to think and I needed videos that aligned with this philosophy. That’s when I ran across this TedEd talk with Dr. Derek Muller.
Does the phrase “Especially for High School Teachers” ring a bell? Journal of Chemical Education readers may remember this feature from past issues. Could it be time for its return, with a twist?
Common drain cleaners consist of water, sodium hypochlorite (bleach) and sodium hydroxide (base) and/or potassium hydroxide (base). Bases are caustic (caustic loosely means to gnaw or eat away at) and can cause corrosion in metal pipes. Wouldn’t you know, our house has PVC piping through the fixtures that dump into a 45 year old cast iron pipe. The cast iron pipe is old and currently shows signs of surface rust and corrosion to the point where the pipe appears to be leaking then sealing itself in several spots. Not to mention the interior of the cast iron pipe may not be completely open, thus, not permitting a fast flow in drainage. Good news: a home warranty is being taken advantage of to hopefully replace the cast iron pipe with a PVC pipe.
A few years ago, we launched a weather balloon during our summer science camp. The balloon reached an altitude of 30 km (100,000 ft)! Among other things, this project ended up being a great way to teach campers about the gas laws and how atmospheric pressure decreases with altitude.
For anyone out there looking to do any screen recording may have already invested in Camtasia. If not, I highly reccommend investing in it. I just ran the latest update for Camtasia for mac and it now offers the capability to record directly to your mobile apple device.
Last year, I worked hard to teach my students how to fail and I believe it was the most important lesson they could have taken away from my class.
How does the blue to white color change occur in the foam of Scrubbing Bubbles or KABOOM Brand cleaners? Watch this video and find out.
CLEAPSS is a subscription service, but our YouTube Channnel is an open source. The videos are designed for teachers and technicians in schools. They may just give you ideas. I have just put one up about electrostatics and the effect of magnets on water and oxygen. In a couple of weeks I hope to have a sequel showing the effect of magnets on precipitates and complexes.