activity

At the end of our unit on chemical bonding, I wanted to provide an opportunity for students to apply the various topics from the unit into one culminating lab that was practical to execute and challenged their current understanding of the material.

Thermochemistry is an interesting unit to discuss with chemistry teachers, as the depth at which different teachers cover it seems to vary widely. Some teachers cover the topic in much greater depth than I do.

The major constituent of a KoolAid or a similar non-carbonated soft drink will probably be either citric acid, malic acid, or a mixture of the two acids. Either of these two weak fruit acids provides a pleasant taste and an acidity level that makes the drink palatable.

This post shares something very special – my favorite ever foldable. I designed it a few years ago to help students see the relationships that exist in the Combined Gas Law. This foldable is used differently than most – instead of starting with closed flaps, you start with all of the flaps OPEN. The effect is transformative.

When students study atomic theory, they learn that protons and neutrons are in the nucleus and electrons are found in an electron cloud outside the nucleus. Therefore, when they are introduced to nuclear chemistry, some students have a hard time understanding that an electron can come FROM THE NUCLEUS! A beta particle is a free electron that i

If you have seen some of my previous webinars*, you probably have heard me mention that I use interactive notebooks in my chemistry I classes. Today, I’m going to share the first of many units: stoichiometry. Keep an eye out because gas laws and thermochemistry will be coming very soon!

I still love the first day of a course, even after almost 36 years in this business. But I don’t love wasting student-energy and excitement droning through course expectations, mark-allocations and the like. Now, more than ever, face-time cannot be taken for granted or frittered away.

Many of us find stoichiometry to be what I like to think of as “the grind” unit in our chemistry courses. It feels like it never ends and the students can get very burned out with what can feel like repetitive practice. To address this, I designed a stoichiometry scavenger hunt to inject some fun into my stoichiometry unit.

Nuclear chemistry is often one of the most fascinating topics we cover in an introductory chemistry course. Finding demos that are interesting, relevant, and manageable is sometimes challenging. As a ceramic artist and chemistry professor, using Fiestaware® to talk about the historical use of radioactive isotopes is my favorite demonstration.