Activities

I try to examine activities an multiple levels. First on the list, I want to know if my students will be engaged and learn something. Second, how difficult is it for me as a teacher to actually pull it off? One of the most important questions...are the students learning chemistry or just having fun?

I found a version of this demonstration online a couple of years ago. I admit, when I first tried it with my class it was mostly for a crowd pleaser to demonstrate the activity series of metals, but I then became very intrigued by the processes occurring.

In an effort to better understand my high school students' knowledge of what is happening during phase changes, heating curve calculations, and the ever popular can crush demo, I run them through a series of activities.

As a teacher, there are certain things I think I do well, and other areas where I think I can improve. One of these areas is helping students make connections between topics - especially at the end of a unit. Can I get students to see the proverbial "Big Picture"?

To grasp the concept of oxidation and reduction reactions, I have my high school students write half reactions to show the loss and gain of electrons by the substances being oxidized and reduced. To help with this concept, I developed a quick lab activity involving the reaction between magnesium metal and dilute hydrochloric acid, which in turn led to

I have been looking at model building labs in some of my previous posts and would like to continue with that theme. In my last post I talked about an activity where students try to recognize functional groups by examining previously built molecules.

I have used many silver mirror/Tollen's test labs. I have struggled with some and over the years I have found that this version is very reliable if the directions are followed carefully and students work through the procedure fairly quickly.

After receiving positive feedback from Peter Mahaffy, the IUPAC project co-chair of Isotopes Matter, I decided to add an additional component to the original isotope assignment I posted.

ChemEd X recently made a Call for Contributions soliciting input regarding the big ideas being put forth by organizations like AP. The first thing that came to mind was a lab I modified that is centered around making connections between topics. Admittedly, this lab is not a "big idea" per se.

In a previous post I talked about an equation balancing lab that I have been doing with my students involving building molecular models.