Using IUPAC's Isotopes Matter as a Digital Learning Tool

The first unit of chemistry, no matter your content sequence, is an opportunity to use formative assessments to identify student prior knowledge. In addition, this is also a time for your students to get an idea of your instructional approach and how they will be participating in class. For many chemistry teachers, the structure of the atom is the initial unit that serves not only as a review for many topics but a manner to address misconceptions and gaps in student content knowledge. A resource that I have found useful to not only assess the content understanding of the students but their peer to peer discussion etiquette is the resource Isotopes Matter.

Isotopes Matter is a digital learning tool, developed by IUPAC Isotopic Periodic Table, designed to explain isotopes as well as their importance. This resource incorporates mass spectroscopy data into each of the key ideas as well as provides multiple examples as to how varying isotopes are commonly used.

The activity I have developed is assigned during the first week of school to not only review the content but to identify baseline levels for scientific explanation as well as student-led discussion.   

In the first part of the lesson, I provide the students with a claim in which they have to explain using the Isotopes Matter resource as their content guide. Even though I provide the students with the website, it is their responsibility to determine the essential information in order to support the claim. In the second part of the activity, students choose an example in which isotopes are useful in the real world. After the students have completed both parts of the assignment the next component is to communicate their key ideas to their small group as well as the entire class. Students in their small groups can use a whiteboard to organize their thoughts or explain the key ideas their group found about each section to the rest of the class.

 I do expect students to be confused on what they should say during the discussion however they do have a small group of students that they can ask. Although multiple groups may have similar information that they identify, the discussion is important because the students practice informal presentations, as well as identifying information that they agree, is important to answering the learning target.

After reviewing my activity, if you have any suggestions to improve the assignment while maintaining the overall goals please share in the comments section below.