It can be difficult to engage students in reviewing for semester exams by using worksheets or practicing problems on the whiteboard. If you are looking to change up your review plans, you might consider using a lab activity that provides opportunity to revisit many of the topics that need to be covered.
Inspired by Ben Meacham's post on stoichiometry, I looked to modify the lab sequence for my IB Chemistry class for our unit on stoichiometry. I will describe my experience modifying a typical empirical formula lab, along with using a modified version of the lab Ben shared.
A raspberry pi is the one of the world's cheapest computers. It is a $35 computer that runs off of an eight gig SD card. Anyone can program it with Python (a relatively simple coding lanquage) and it can do small things.
A perfect storm starts to form. We are on the concept of moles and I have some students who are struggling mathematically. It is a rough time of year to get kids excited. Many students are struggling with ACT and SAT prep and as a teacher, I am tired of test...test...test. Also, I had about two dozen 2 liter bottle "pre forms" that I needed to find something to do with.
Every October I get excited; not as much for halloween, but rather for Mole Day! I have been a member of the National Mole Day Foundation (NMDF) since the beginning of my career and enjoy celebrating with my students. My first year of teaching we (the chemistry classes) hosted
We, as teachers, can see that life is sometimes like this and we care enough about our students that we want to try to prepare them for careers and problems that we can’t even imagine….because we believe that good education can empower people to go further and reach higher than they could ever dream….and maybe the journey we will start together begins with a simple question in which the answer may not seem immediately obvious...and that is O.K….
What is your definition of the term “mole” in chemistry? Many articles have been written about the term and the confusion surrounding it. It was not considered an SI unit (with an IUPAC definition) until 1971. IUPAC is considering a change to the 1971 definition. There has been discussion about whether the SI definition of the mole as determined by IUPAC necessarily needs to be identical to the definition used by chemists and teachers. This article provides a short list of some recent JCE articles discussing the change and what it might mean for teachers while also considering some misconceptions related to the mole in chemistry class.
The three "Guided Instructional Activities" in this activity are three cooperative learning pieces in which students are guided through the process of converting from one unit to moles (or moles to a unit) by the method of "unit analysis" (dimensional analysis). Students alternate steps in the process and evaluate the success of each step.
