Discover the secrets behind flame-shaped highlighter markings that not only disappear and reappear but also glow and flicker under the influence of acids, bases, and UV lights.
Placing dry ice in limewater is a great demonstration to accompany discussions on a variety of chemical topics, including the impact of ocean acidification on marine organisms that depend upon the formation of CaCO3.
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.
In two connected ways, thermodynamics describes how both physical or chemical processes spontaneously trend towards equilibrium. This post is concerned with showing how free energy (ΔGrxn) changes as the reaction quotient (Q) changes as both trend towards the special condition, equilibrium, described by the constant K.
This post describes a simple way to generate blue, green, orange, and yellow copper complexes, and to use these complexes to introduce students to the effect of temperature on chemical equilibria. The protcol avoids the use of caustic agents, allowing the experiments to be conducted by students as a laboratory-based investigation.
What is the pressure inside a bottle of soda pop? Read this short article to find the surprising answer to this question, and also to learn how to do an experiment to answer this question for yourself!
Solutions of copper (II) dissolved in acetone are easy to prepare, and can display orange, yellow, green, and blue color depending upon conditions. Such solutions allow for a variety of demonstrations and experiments that illustrate principles of chemical equilibrium.
My top 5 reasons for using Green Chemistry in my classroom along with a few examples of replacement labs that follow Green Chemistry principles.
This physical analogy relates to dynamic equilibrium and pits students against each other in a classroom-wide “snowball” fight. Not only is this activity great for building students’ conceptualization of dynamic equilibrium, it is also really fun!
The solution to "Chemical Mystery #16: A Red, White, and Blue Chemistry Trick for You!" is presented. How this experiment can be used as a springboard to carry out a simple quantitative analysis of salt solubility is also discussed.
