high school chemistry

Gas Laws are an essential and easily accessible area of chemistry to understand. They can be an excellent foothold into the inner workings of chemistry.

After taking two courses with American Modeling Teachers Association (AMTA) I gained more insight and appreciation for evidence driven teaching. In the AMTA curriculum students are provided ionization energy values to help them construct Bohr diagrams and explain why multiple energy levels are required in the Bohr model.

Recently, Anne Schmidt and I published an article together in the Journal of Chemical Education.¹ The article outlines a titration activity that students can carry out at home using only store-bought items. The objective of the activity is to determine the amount of Mg(OH)₂ in milk of magnesia.

Chemical bonding is a pivotal topic in chemistry classes that can be overwhelming for students and teachers alike - so much to teach, so many ways that it can be overwhelming! On November 4th, 2021, Nora Walsh shared her unit covering chemical bonding and naming in this ChemBasics Talk.

At the high school level, chemistry labs can be challenging for a variety of reasons. First, the typical high school class length is usually far too short for completing an entire lab experiment, and spreading a lab over multiple days may leave the concepts fragmented in students' minds.

A recent publication in the Journal of Chemical Education caught my eye.¹ The article describes how lithium “coin” or “button” batteries can be used in the chemistry laboratory to teach students about stoichiometry.