After almost 40 years as a Chemistry teacher, I have noticed that the prescribed order of topics in high school chemistry is, according to the Province of Ontario’s Guidelines, anywhere from less-than-ideal to downright illogical.
I’m just old enough that I never kept a paper gradebook. When I was a student in school, my grades were on paper and arrived in the mail. As a teacher, my grades have always been entered into the computer and sent off to the world with a click of a button. Parents and students know the grade as soon as I share it.
The November 2024 APTeach presentation outlined instructional strategies to model net ionic equations and chemical reactions using particulate models, chemical symbols, and observations to support students’ understanding of how chemicals react and interact at the particle level.
The year 2024 has continued to be outstanding for even casual observers of astronomical phenomena. There are opportunities to connect these phenomena to chemical concepts.
The Chemistry Laboratory Curriculum (CLC) Innovators Program is now accepting applications for the 2025 cohort! This program offers institutional teams from across the U.S. the chance to participate in a week-long summer institute and ongoing virtual support meetings during the 2025-2026 academic year.
In my three decades of teaching, I have found that students understand chemistry much more easily when it is connected to real-world contexts—therefore, I try to drive home the relevance of chemistry by providing examples related to the environment, health and beauty, and the food industry, to name a few.
It was the end of year in chemistry, and we were starting our final exam review. Our chemistry planning team mistakenly left some first semester content on the review guide - oh no!
