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Hydrates Take 2

Chad Husting | Wed, 03/22/2017 - 07:42
hydrate lab

My students and I tend to have good experiences with a hydrate inquiry lab that I have "tweaked" (see the previous blog). Essentially, my students have some practice with hydrates in the lab and then they are provided an unknown hydrate. They must separate off the water by heating and calculate the mass of the anhydrous salt and container before they come up and put it on the scale. As an added twist, they must also ask me a question about what information they need from me to calculate the mole to mole ratio of the salt to water.

Gas Laws and the Over-Reliance on Algorithmic Thinking

Ben Meacham | Mon, 03/20/2017 - 14:45

As our Gas Laws unit was coming to an end, it was time to create the test. As I thought of potential test questions that were both challenging and in alignment with the learning objectives we had previously identified for the unit, I was reminded of a multiple-choice question I had been shown in an old Modeling InstructionTM resource.

Nominate Outstanding High School Chemistry Teachers

Patricia Mabrouk | Thu, 03/16/2017 - 13:08
ACS Regional Award for HS Teaching

In 2006, The Division of Chemical Education endowed an award program, the Regional Award for Excellence in High School Teaching, to recognize and inspire outstanding high school chemistry teachers. Each of the ten Regions of the American Chemical Society solicits nominations for this award. The winners receive $1000, an engraved plaque and travel expenses to the meeting where they are honored.

Especially JCE: March 2017

Erica K. Jacobsen | Wed, 03/15/2017 - 11:05

Throw the phrase “chemistry class” at someone to get their reaction. What do you predict it would be? A chalkboard full of stoichiometry problems? Wading through the atomic masses on the periodic table? Bubbling beakers? Something else? In any case, I’m guessing his or her first answer would not be, “Creative writing.”

JCE 94.03 March 2017 Issue Highlights

Mary Saecker | Tue, 03/14/2017 - 14:06
Journal of Chemical Education March 2017 Cover

Promoting Problem-Solving and Discovery Learning

The March 2017 issue of the Journal of Chemical Education is now available online to subscribers. Topics featured in this issue include: protein chemistry; making connections in in chemical education research; chemical bonding; importance of non-technical skills; courses built on reactivity; periodic table; heterocyclic compounds; teaching resources; from the archives: Using Wikipedia and Wikis to teach.

Do you have a favorite acid-base titration lab?

Allison Tarvin | Sat, 03/11/2017 - 10:11

HCl and NaOH, a strong acid - strong base titration? Citric acid and NaOH, a weak, triprotic acid - strong base titration? Do your students standardize the NaOH solution as a first step?

AP Chemistry Lab Notebook Structure

Tracy.Schloemer | Sun, 03/05/2017 - 11:00

How do you support growth in your students’ writing and communication over time? There are so many things: Claim, Evidence, Reasoning (CER) scaffolds, sentence starters, and more. How might all of these tools used in introductory courses come together in an upper-level course? In this post, I will focus upon my AP Chemistry lab notebook set-up.

ACS Discoveries! - Making Science More Accessible

Deanna Cullen | Fri, 03/03/2017 - 15:57

The American Chemical Society is offering a new service in hopes of making science more accessible to the public. Each week they issue a short collection of science articles, written in an interesting and engaging style, that you might use with your students to help them make connections between the curriculum and their own lives. The service is called Discoveries!, and it is free.

Figuring Out Electron Configurations

Laura Wang | Tue, 02/28/2017 - 10:01
connecting ionization energy to electron configurations

After spending the start of the year using a modified version of the Modeling Instruction curriculum (density and physical properties, followed by gas laws, followed by energy and phase changes), we don’t actually start talking about what’s inside atoms until December. I love that by this point students are already familiar with some of the habits of mind needed to reason abstractly about atoms -- thinking proportionally, explaining macroscopic observations at the particle level -- and we are ready to layer on both more abstraction and the symbolic level. By January, we are ready to explore electron configurations.