NGSS

Storylines seem to be the new buzzword in chemistry education. Biology teachers have had access to storyline curriculums since the early 2000s, but chemistry (and physics) have only had wholly developed (and widely available) storyline curricula since 2019. Since then, the number of free, widely available curriculums has grown.

Teaching decontextualized chemistry has often made it difficult for teachers to connect chemistry to students' everyday lives. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the George Floyd protests and the implosion of the Crawford Power Plant in Chicago's Little Village neighborhood I realized that students should have a working knowledge of chemistry to understand what is happening in their communities by examining social justice science issues (SJSI) as relevant storylines. Teaching SJSI allows students to identify, describe, and dismantle socioeconomic, environmental, and health issues that cause harm in their communities. In this article, I will explain how I use SJSI as a pathway to teach the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and the fourth dimension of Johnstone’s Triangle.

One of the main tenets of NGSS is the use of phenomena to have students discover the content. I’m new to NGSS, as Indiana just adopted the standards this year, but I’m very excited about the integration of phenomena. I’m all-in on attempting to ground as much of my instruction as possible in phenomena.

I recently had the opportunity to attend a conference of the Associated Chemistry Teachers of Texas (ACT2). I had  great time interacting with and learning from a whole bunch of wonderful chemical educators from the great state of Texas.

This year was so atypical for most educators; teaching in different formats, some face to face, some hybrid, some completely virtual. My school typically offers honors, a regular level, and a more supported level chemistry track for students. Due to the constraints of scheduling in a Covid climate, this past year students were all grouped in one class.

Since the release of the National Research Council’s Framework for K-12 Science Education¹ in 2011 and the subsequent Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) that would follow in 2013, an increasing number of science educators have become familiar with the general idea of placing greater emphasis on science as a way of

I just finished my first week of school, like many teachers in the Midwest. I work hard to get my Honors Chemistry students in a lab setting as soon as possible. It is difficult to find a perfect lab to do on the first or second day of school.