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“The Candle Experiment” – an Opening Exercise for General (or introductory)...
I … bring before you, in the course of these lectures, the Chemical History of a Candle. There is not a law under which any part of this universe is governed which does not come into play and is...
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The White Powder Activity
What are we doing to help kids achieve and learn? I always feel a need to start the year off with an activity that ties in observations and conclusions but I also know that most students have had...
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NGSS Integration and Chemistry Curriculum Design
During my 2nd week into summer “vacation” I met with nine other secondary science teachers from my district. We set forth on a week-long curriculum design journey that involved the new Michigan Science...
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Significant Digits, Pool Tolerances, and Ties in Swimming
With the Olympics just finishing up, I was excited to see the following link posted on twitter entitled: Significant Digits and Pool Tolerances are Why There are So Many Ties in Swimming....
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Unit Conversions: The good, the bad and the ugly
Like most chemistry teachers, one of the first things I go over in the beginning of the year is unit conversions. Students come into my class with all sorts of prior knowledge concerning unit...
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Tackling Big Ideas
It was the empty terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach at 9:30 at night that really bothered me as I am wading through the stack of papers that I was grading. I had the students do experiments,...
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Big Ideas – Missing in Action in the Chemistry Curriculum
The genesis of this paper started with a request from a former student, Thomas Kuntzleman, now a professor of chemistry. He asked if I would consider submitting my thoughts about ‘big ideas’ in...
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Big Ideas at ChemEd X
In the article “Reactions Catalyzed by an Assault on a Favorite Principle”1, Emeric Schultz (who incidentally taught me General Chemistry, was my undergraduate advisor, and is now a dear friend and...
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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...
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Attempts to Detect Cocaine on Money: A Great Exploration for National...
The theme for National Chemistry Week (NCW) for 2016 is “Solving Mysteries through Chemistry: Exploring the Chemistry of Fibers and Forensics”. To prepare for NCW, I’ve been trying to learn as much as...
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Modeling the Particulate Level for those who are not sure how to Model...
What are we doing to help kids achieve and learn? I have friends who model. I get it. In theory, if students can explain and defend their ideas on a particulate level, they become much better...
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Early Use of AP Insight with Honors Chemistry: Atomic Mass, Mass...
College Board offers an excellent online resource for teachers and students. It's not free, but my school district pays the bill. AP Insight provides curriculum outlines, teaching ideas and resources,...
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Identifying Organic Functional Groups Activity
In a previous post I talked about an equation balancing lab that I have been doing with my students involving building molecular models. This time I would like to focus on another lab that I have...
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JCE 93.09 September 2016 Issue Highlights
Engaging Student Interest and InquiryThe September 2016 issue of the Journal of Chemical Education is now available online to subscribers. Topics featured in this issue include: copper chemistry;...
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Especially JCE: September 2016
“You sank my battleship!” Do you remember this line from a classic commercial featuring the board game Battleship? It sat in my family’s game closet when I was a kid, but it’s popping up again...
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Google Forms as an Assessment Tool
This school year my district is launching a 1:1 Chromebook initiative. 6th and 9th graders will receive their Chromebooks next semester as part of the rollout. In the meantime, I continue to have...
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Supporting Individual Lab Accountability in Large Science Classes
How do teachers encourage building individual lab skills in classes of over 30 students where labs are done in groups of five or six students? My science department collaborates daily, and we have been...
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Walking in the Footsteps of Scientists Who Came Before Us
I know that many of you teach chemistry in a traditional order of topics -- atoms, bonding, reactions, stoichiometry, etc. However, I walked away from that order six years ago and started teaching in a...
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Titration of an Esterification Reaction to Determine Equilibrium Constant
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...
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Standards and Mastery Connect
What are we doing to help kids achieve and learn? There has been considerable discussion lately of standard based teaching. Essentially, a teacher has a set of standards and they teach to these...
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