Blogs

I attended 5th grade camp with my son, Stevie, this week. Camp Miniwanca is a beautiful property between the vastness of Lake Michigan and a much smaller inland Stony Lake. The program is based upon the "experiential learning cycle". Small groups of campers work through a series of challenges. The counselors and chaperones allow the children to struggle, disagree and fail. Of course, success is congratulated and enjoyed. Children choose their own goals for individual challenges, so they have an opportunity to strive for their "best self" and meeting or exceeding whatever goal they have made is celebrated. Children were given many team and individual responsibilities. Every part of the day at camp had a purpose. Stevie is the youngest of my children. I have chaperoned several camps before and I attended a few as a child myself and one as an adult participant. This one was by far the best run camp I have attended. Many camps give lip service to experiential learning, but the thing that I observed at Camp Miniwanca that impressed me was there attentiveness to the entire process of the experiential learning cycle. 

I’m looking forward to this year’s National Chemistry Week even more than usual.  The 2014 theme “The Sweet Side of Chemistry” offers an opportunity to share the chemistry of candy, a super high-interest topic.

Earth Day is just around the corner. If you are looking for some ideas to highlight environmental issues, the Journal of Chemical Education is offering free access to many articles and activities that you will find interesting. Check them out!

I attended professional development provided by the VanAndel Education Institute (VAEI) in Grand Rapids, Michigan, that provided an opportunity to observe scientists at the VanAndel Institute engage in a journal club.

Have you ever thought about the ways we, as chemistry teachers, talk about the concept of energy?  Think about all the different terms we use when we talk about the role of energy in our curriculum:  endothermic, exothermic, heat, specific heat, heat capacity, enth

I just recently became aware of the Chemical Educational Foundation® (CEF), a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting youth science education. They have developed a K-8 science curriculum supplement that recently won a Teachers’ Choice Award for the Classroom.

Having completed a unit on stoichiometry,  I was looking to review with my HS students some key topics before Spring Break.  I had received from FLINN scientific their "It's Elementary--March Madness" activity: