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Geometric Approach to Lewis Structures
If you look at any chemistry textbook, you will see Lewis structures introduced long before electronic and molecular geometries. This makes sense since you need Lewis structures to determine molecular...
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Especially JCE: April 2016
In a dramatic movie trailer voice: “The Boiling Point. Gone without a trace. Or were they? The scene… a mystery. Had they disappeared? Been broken up into unrecognizable pieces? Can our hero find the...
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JCE 93.04 April 2016 Issue Highlights
Chemists Celebrate Earth DayThe April 2016 issue of the Journal of Chemical Education is now available online to subscribers. In honor of Earth Day 2016, the April issue includes a variety of content...
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Interactive Bonding Resources from PBS
Recently, I was contacted on twitter by a concerned teacher who was using Chemistry Modeling Instruction for the first time. He was looking for supplemental materials to help his students understand...
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Target labs, Reviews and THAT kid...
What am I doing to help kids achieve?How do I know when they are there?What is the evidence? Every teacher I know of has a certain student. It is THAT kid. There is always the one kid that when other...
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Give Me Back My Copper! A Simple, but Multi-Faceted Lab Activity to Review...
In the lab, students are given a 1.5 gram samples of copper. The copper is taken through a series of five chemical reactions ending with the precipitation of solid copper. After the five reactions,...
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Blending a Periodicity Unit
Previously I wrote about taking part in a district-wide high school blended learning pilot. You can read about it here. I received my Chromebook cart near the end of February/beginning of March. A...
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App Review - Classkick
Although not a chemistry app, I have been using Classkick in my chemistry class strictly as a formative assessment tool and wanted to share the many benefits I have found with it. Classkick is a free...
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One teacher's attempt to use BCA Tables for Stoichiometry
There has been a fair amount of discussion on ChemEd X within the last two years about how to teach stoichiometry. (See Stoichiometry is Easy, Conceptual Chemistry, and Rethinking Stoichiometry.) I've...
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Moles, STEM, Raspberry Pi and Great Teachers....
What am I doing to help kids achieve?How do I know when they are there?What is the evidence?I have to admit. I am really lucky. I teach with some of the best teachers on the planet. Mike Geyer is one...
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Spring Senioritis!?!
Senioritis. Seniors come down with it. Underclassmen claim it's contagious. Teachers do not appear to be exempt. Let's face it: Summer is coming and we all know it. We all want it. We are all ready for...
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Kinetics Review
In one of my last blog posts I wrote of how I sometimes enjoy ending a unit with a series of demonstrations and using them to elicit a dialog between the students and myself to check for understanding....
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Conversations, Confessions, Confusions (and hopefully some Clarity) on...
I have a confession to make: I don’t really understand how to correctly predict the electronic configurations (EC) of every element and ion. Until recently, I thought I had everything figured out. In...
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Clarifying Electron Configurations
The Aufbau Principle: the (n + l) RuleWe’ve all seen and use the so-called Aufbau Diagram (Figure 1). It is a mnemonic used to remember the order of “filling” of atomic orbitals during the construction...
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Is Your Department NGSS Ready? A Review of “What Professional Development...
With the end of the school year approaching, educators are not only developing their semester exams, they are preparing for the upcoming school year as well. Although each individual...
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Argument-Driven Inquiry in Chemistry: Lab Investigations for Grades 9 - 12
I have been on a mission lately to make scientists out of my students. I am long past my fears that they are not capable of discovering the world for themselves or that they won’t learn the content if...
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A Look Into My General Chemistry Reactions Unit- Supporting Students with...
Organic chemistry was when I fell in love with chemistry. Also known as Chem 210 at the University of Michigan, it was the first time I actually started to connect what was going on at the nanoscopic...
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Fun and Quick Rates Lab (No pun intended...)
What am I doing to help kids achieve?How do I know when they are there?What is the evidence? I am facing what many teachers are facing. It is AP week, I am trying to continue "as usual" with doing...
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Moles, STEM, Raspberry Pi and Great Teachers....
What am I doing to help kids achieve?How do I know when they are there?What is the evidence?I have to admit. I am really lucky. I teach with some of the best teachers on the planet. Mike Geyer is one...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Spring Senioritis!?!
Senioritis. Seniors come down with it. Underclassmen claim it's contagious. Teachers do not appear to be exempt. Let's face it: Summer is coming and we all know it. We all want it. We are all ready for...
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