Laboratory Resources

As we approach Graduation season, I’ve been considering all the new teachers we will have joining our schools in the very near future, and thinking back to my first year as a Biology and Chemistry teacher in 1997. There are many skills and techniques that may not be formally taught to preservice teachers, no matter if they go through alternative ce

This piece explains an activity that allows for the simple and accurate determination of the heat of vaporization, ΔH_vap,

Can high school students truly drive their own lab experience? I’d say after enough time and exposure, they can. This is what led me to develop a version of the Carbonate Project to have students perform after the AP Exam. This experience requires students to do some research, execute previously performed lab techniques, and identify an u

“Be flexible and have a great sense of humour” has always been my philosophy of life, especially so when teaching during COVID times. As many times as COVID seems to have mutated these past few years I feel I have also adapted and changed most everything I do.

Interactive notebooks (INB) are a useful tool to help students interact with course content, and show them the flow and evolution of a course - particularly in courses that may not have a textbook. On July 11, 2022, Nora Walsh shared tips and advice for integrating interactive notebooks into chemistry lessons.

I will cut right to the chase. “Understanding Chemistry through microscale practical work” by Bob Worley, David Paterson and with Sarah Longshaw is a book you should get if you ever want to consider successfully doing microscale chemistry with students.

At the high school level, chemistry labs can be challenging for a variety of reasons. First, the typical high school class length is usually far too short for completing an entire lab experiment, and spreading a lab over multiple days may leave the concepts fragmented in students' minds.

Good day, Gentle Readers: After a recent study of Intermolecular Forces, my AP Chemistry students experienced the joy of performing a microscale extraction of caffeine from tea.