middle school science

In 2015, I began making chemistry videos to reduce the amount of in-class lecturing during exam review. Some students needed a detailed reteach of specific content, others only needed a refresher, and still others grew frustrated when I retaught concepts they already understood well. Creating videos provided the flexibility to meet all of these needs.

The Density Bottle experiment has inspired many colorful variations over the years.^1-6 I recently came across yet another colorful variation that I’d like to discuss.

I’m just old enough that I never kept a paper gradebook. When I was a student in school, my grades were on paper and arrived in the mail. As a teacher, my grades have always been entered into the computer and sent off to the world with a click of a button. Parents and students know the grade as soon as I share it. 

Would you like to take a walk with me through the chemical winter wonderland of snowflakes? Well, we chemists know that the stunning six-sided symmetry of snowflakes (Figure 1) results from repeated arrangement of water molecules into a hexagonal crystal structure (Figure 2).

Josh Kenney, Melissa Hemling, and I just published an article in the October 2024 Journal of Chemical Education. The article describes inquiry-based activities that highlight the chemistry behind “No-Mess” picture-coloring books.¹ Well, it turns out that our timing is impeccable.

Galinstan is the tradename for a liquid metal alloy that is comprised of three elements: gallium (68.5%), indium (21.5%), and tin (10%).¹ It behaves a lot like mercury but has significantly lower toxicity. Because of this, Galinstan is used as a replacement for mercury in a variety of applications.