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Did you know that Pyrex glassware used in chemistry labs is different than Pyrex glassware used in kitchens? Pyrex glass used in chemistry experiments is made of borosilicate glass, whereas the Pyrex used when baking is made of soda lime glass. What’s the difference?
In a previous post, I discussed the work of my grade 10 class as we read the non-fiction story, The Case of the Frozen Addicts. We've continued working our way through the book, taking one class every two weeks to delve into the issues presented. Just this week, we engaged in a fish-bowl discussion. To help steer the discussion, I started the class with a quick warm-up activity asking students to suggest topics or questions that they would want to talk through in the fish bowl.
How many likes does your page have? How many followers do you have? How many reads for that particular blog post? Page views? Downloads? Number of times cited? Impact factor? In the online world, much of life is lived by the numbers.
Have you ever been curious about the chemistry of a lemon? What about the chemical structures of adrenaline, dopamine, or serotonin? Would you like to share with your students the elements that make up their smartphone? Or what how about a beautiful “infographic” representing each of the families of the periodic table? Then Compound Interest at www.compoundchem.com has you covered and then some.
Reading a non-fiction book with chemistry students titled, “The Case of the Frozen Addicts: Working at the Edge of the Mysteries of the Human Brain", helps teachers relate the importance of chemistry around us.
It's interesting to me how a word can define a class. The longer I teach, the more excited and quickly I can cover a concept. However, this pace does not necessarily fit well with my students, so we have a code word: Traxoline (thanks to Judy Lanier).
“How Much Turmoil Does the Science Project Cause Families?” reads the tongue-in-cheek science-fair-style poster illustrating parent Susan Messina’s views on science fairs. Her materials list includes: at least 1 grudging parent, half-baked idea of very dubious merit, and procrastination.
The nail bottle demonstration is one that many of us have conducted in our classes. To perform this demonstration, 2 – 3 mL of ethanol is placed into a plastic bottle that has two nails punctured into opposite sides of the bottle. After stoppering the bottle, a Tesla coil is touched to one of the nails. A spark jumps from one nail to the other, which initiates the combustion of vaporized ethanol inside the bottle. We recently filmed this reaction with our high speed video camera.
A fan letter for a chemistry experiment? Well, yes. I read Tom Kuntzleman’s blog post “Soap Boat 2.0” over four months ago and immediately bookmarked it.
My students and I intend to use a high-speed camera to film a variety of chemistry experiments in slow motion. The first reaction we have decided to film is the “Whoosh Bottle”. You can read more about this particular experiment in an article in Journal of Chemical Education here. NOTE: O