high school chemistry

Literacy Stations in the Chemistry Classroom

Stephanie O'Brien | Mon, 09/25/2017 - 12:38

I took a tip from the elementary school teachers and created literacy stations to help increase the amount of reading and writing in my classroom. Literacy centers support students by arming them with the tools to utilize when examining text documents, charts, graphs, pictures etc. to take the content and make it comprehensible. Here I will provide examples of literacy centers I utilize in my classroom.

That’s What Scientists Do!

Doug Ragan | Sun, 09/24/2017 - 21:24

As I began to prepare my labs for this upcoming year, I decided to put a bit of a twist on a previous density of a block lab I had used in the past entitled the Measurement Challenge that is sold by Flinn Scientific. It can also be used to find the mass of a block given the materials density and requiring students to measure and calculate the blocks volume. My added twist resulted in great scientific discourse.

My Research: Unpacking Active Learning

Martina Rau | Thu, 09/21/2017 - 13:11

Does flipping the classroom actually enhance students’ learning, above and beyond just incorporating collaborative activities into classroom instruction? John Moore, one of the chemistry professors at my university, the University of Wisconsin - Madison approached me with this question. We ended up conducting a research study on one of his chemistry courses.

Using EdPuzzle As A Platform To Deliver Videos

Lowell Thomson | Wed, 09/20/2017 - 08:37

In this blog post I will summarize my use of EdPuzzle as an online platform for delivery of video content to my IB Chemistry students. It's an alternative to YouTube or your CMS/LMS that offers some unique features, such as inserting questions into the video and tracking student viewing habits.

Elements and Augmented Reality

Chad Husting | Sun, 09/17/2017 - 18:21

Augmented reality is a type of technology that uses an app to turn a hidden QR code into a three dimensional object on a screen as viewed by your camera. Elements 4D attempts to bring augmented reality to chemistry.

Especially JCE: September 2017

Erica K. Jacobsen | Sun, 09/17/2017 - 17:49

Erica Jacobsen shares highlights from the September 2017 issue of the Journal of Chemical Education that are of special interest to high school chemistry teachers.

Flinn Chemventory

Deanna Cullen | Thu, 09/14/2017 - 23:44

The Flinn website sums up their software with these sentences, "Flinn’s Online Chemventory™ Inventory Management System(link is external) is a cloud-based lab management system that allows multiple users on multiple devices from multiple locations! Available as a 1-Year, 3-Year or 5-Year license.

JCE 94.09 September 2017 Issue Highlights

Mary Saecker | Thu, 09/14/2017 - 11:46

Journal of Chemical Education September 2016 Cover

Enhancing Student Success in Chemistry

The September 2017 issue of the Journal of Chemical Education is now available online to subscribers. Topics featured in this issue include: student thinking and student success; computational thinking; using games to teach: developing and making tools for teaching; understanding catalysis; green chemistry; food chemistry in the laboratory; exploring edible fats and oils; NMR spectroscopy; laboratory cross-course collaboration; physical chemistry; distilling the archives: scents and smellability; announcing the search for the next Editor-in-Chief.

A Class Discussion on the Nature of Science

Kaleb Underwood | Wed, 09/13/2017 - 21:40

The first chapter of every middle and high school science textbook I have ever seen contains an oversimplified section on “the scientific method.” I wanted my students to gain an understanding of science by doing science, as best as we can replicate in a classroom, though inquiry labs, class discussions, and defending claims with evidence.

Are you part of an AP Chemistry professional learning community?

Allison Tarvin | Wed, 09/13/2017 - 20:00

The research says the best way to make your school better is to encourage teachers to participate in professional learning teams that unpack the standards to determine what each student should learn and how the learning will be measured, build a useful warehouse of evidence that learning is occurring, and critically review data collected to determine useful instructional strategies versus ineffective strategies.