acid/base

A Highly-Scaffolded Activity for Helping Students Generate Exam Review Questions and See Patterns in Quantitative Problem Solving

Helping students develop abstract understanding is a universal goal. This article describes an activity that involves students developing and then solving novel quantitative chemistry problems following a MadLibsTM style framework.

Lesson to determine the relationships between acid strength, Ka, pH, Molarity, and percent ionization

After teaching the concepts and calculations for acid and base strength, concentration, percent ionization, and pH I noticed many of my students were struggling to make meaningful connections between these calculations.This lesson was created to strengthen the understanding of the relationships between these concepts and skills.

Color Changing Coke and Mentos

What's a better way to start the new school year than with some new experiments? Learn how to use a variety of color changing experiments to teach students about the Diet Coke and Mentos experiment, acids, bases, chemical and physical changes, and climate change.

How strong of acid is Vinegar (Acetic Acid)?

In “How strong an acid is vinegar?” the students explore the nonlinear relationship between the concentration of a weak acid and the pH of the solution. This formative assessment targets the question “how does structure influence reactivity?”  Students need to understand the behavior of strong and weak acids to comprehend phenomena like buffering capacity.