Bonding

Egg-lectrons and McLewis Structures

Dean Campbell | Fri, 02/28/2025 - 22:13

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Egg cartons and beverage holders can be used as models of atoms, with their dimples representing orbitals. Each dimple can hold up to two objects such as milk jug caps, plastic eggs, and cup pieces to represent electrons in the orbitals. Partially overlapping the trays by stacking the dimples represents chemical bonding and produces molecular models resembling Lewis structures. The models can be easily made from materials that can be readily found grocery stores and fast-food restaurants.

A Demo A Day III: Demonstrations and Props Used in My General Chemistry II Classes

Dean Campbell | Sun, 05/21/2023 - 10:50

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Dean Campbell tries to use at least one demo for every class to illustrate concepts described in his chemistry courses. In this post, he includes short descriptions of the demonstrations and props he has used while teaching his collegiate General Chemistry II courses.

Bonding Interactive Notebook

Nora Walsh | Mon, 10/24/2022 - 13:29

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Nora Walsh outlines the interactive notebook pages she uses for her unit on Bonding. All of the documents and foldables are available for download.

Are Red Table Grapes Sold in Stores Always Red?

Scott Donnelly | Mon, 03/28/2022 - 23:43

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Structure. Structure. Structure. This blog post describes a classroom activity where students propose the structure of a molecule- based on bond type information- used to accelerate the change in color of red table grapes.

Generating explosive gases from sand

Tom Kuntzleman | Fri, 01/07/2022 - 12:16

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Did you know that sand can be converted into a mixture of gases that spontaneously ignites in air? The procedures involved are relatively simple to perform, spectacular to observe, and relate to a rich assortment of chemical principles.

Chemical Bonding and Naming with Nora Walsh

Deanna Cullen | Sun, 11/07/2021 - 15:52

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In this ChemBasics Talk, Nora Walsh offers everything necessary to plan a unit on the topic of chemical bonding and naming including introductory and discovery activities, manipulative activities, practice problems, her favorite online teaching resources and more. Watch the recording and access resources she shared.

Reflections on Choice Boards in the Chemistry Classroom

Stephanie O'Brien | Thu, 06/24/2021 - 11:01

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Stephanie O'Brien shares lessons learned and strategies for utilizing choice boards in chemistry classroom.

Kasi: A Multi-Sensory Modeling System

Doug Ragan | Fri, 04/30/2021 - 06:26

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Doug Ragan has been working with the Alchemie team -- founded by a former chemistry teacher, Julia Winter -- for a number of years. They have been working over the last year on a new project, named Kasi, which delivers sound-based feedback to students as they learn with tactile pieces on a magnetic whiteboard. The goal is to build an accessible learning system that helps ALL students learn, and is particularly important for those with visual impairments.

Stamp of the Week #3

Michael Morgan | Wed, 04/07/2021 - 14:56

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A Soviet era stamp featuring a quadruple bond.

Measuring Surface Tension to Investigate Intermolecular Forces

Ben Meacham | Fri, 05/31/2019 - 22:38

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Like most concepts in chemistry, intermolecular forces takes a bit of imagination and critical thinking to fully comprehend and apply when explaining a variety of situations. Though demonstrating the presence of these forces in a simple and explicit manner can easily be done, I wanted to change how I introduced IMFs a bit this year by focusing on a more data-to-concepts approach.