Lab Practicals, Final Exams and a Silver Lining to a Tough Year
Chad Husting | Wed, 06/16/2021 - 08:09
A lab practical with an escape room story turned out to be a great final exam.
Reactions
Simple formation of metal mirrors
Tom Kuntzleman | Mon, 05/10/2021 - 09:57
Beautiful, metallic mirrors of copper or silver can easily be formed in test tubes. Simply add the appropriate metal salt to a test tube, and heat! These reactions should be performed in a fume hood.
Labs, Pandemics and the Future
Chad Husting | Wed, 04/21/2021 - 08:23
Chad Husting shares a microscale Reactions Lab and outlines his goals and plans for labs in his classroom as he prepares for next school year.
Bubbly BBs and Vaccinated Mentos: Chemical Illustrations to Promote Public Health Measures
Dean Campbell | Mon, 02/01/2021 - 10:35
The authors revisit "flattening the curve" demonstrations published during 2020 to see how they could represent the impact of vaccinations on the COVID 19 battlefront. These demonstrations do not demonstrate the mechanisms of vaccines themselves, but are rather analogies to their potential effect on a population. In these analogies, gas production still represents illness, but this time people are represented by objects added to the solutions which either enable gas production (unvaccinated individuals) or do not enable gas production (vaccinated individuals). These simple experiments are best used as stand-alone demonstrations, and links to videos are included in this writeup.
Adjusting a Types of Reactions Lab for Virtual
Jessica Mintz | Wed, 12/02/2020 - 08:43
The Types of Chemical Reactions Lab is a favorite for many teachers and students. Chemistry comes to life as students record observations. This virtual version by no means replaces the students physically conducting the reactions themselves but during these times this activity can be used to supplement the teaching of chemical reactions.
Creating Interactive Particle Diagram Activities for Online Instruction
Michael Farabaugh | Mon, 08/31/2020 - 16:48
Many teachers have students draw models and diagrams to help them illustrate how matter behaves. Teachers can uncover and address possible misconceptions quickly using this strategy. The author describes how to create interactive particle diagram activities that are easy for students to use online. This strategy is applicable to almost any particle diagram and should be useful for teachers during virtual lessons.
Chemistry Experiments with the Flame Tube
Tom Kuntzleman | Tue, 05/26/2020 - 12:37
The Ruben's Tube (also known as a Flame Tube) is a classic experiment used in physics classes. There's also a bit of chemistry to be learned while experimenting with a Ruben's Tube...
Making a (big) eruption with chemistry!
Scott Balicki | Wed, 03/11/2020 - 16:44
As teachers, we can leverage fruitful discussions about chemical control with students to elicit more about students' initial ideas and ways of reasoning. From asking students to clarify their own thinking, we can identify students’ own productive ideas that we can capitalize on to advance their thinking.
Element of the Month - Iodine
Stephen Wright | Thu, 08/29/2019 - 18:37
In honor of the International Year of the Periodic Table: A familiarity with the chemistry of some of the elements more commonly encountered in everyday life is a valuable learning experience for all students. Iodine is the fifth in this series of elements to be discussed as part of the Element of the Month program. #IYPT
Why Green Chemistry? Or Better Yet, Why Not Green Chemistry?
Erika Fatura | Mon, 08/05/2019 - 22:50
My top 5 reasons for using Green Chemistry in my classroom along with a few examples of replacement labs that follow Green Chemistry principles.