Counting Orbitals: Part II
Joseph Lomax | Thu, 07/21/2022 - 17:55
A continuation of Counting Orbitals I: The 'Ah-ha! Moment' and Quantum Numbers. Sit back and adjust your eyeballs for some colorful graphics.
Atomic Properties / Structure
The Magical Periodic Table and The Element Girls Series
Rajasree Swaminathan | Tue, 04/13/2021 - 08:43
Rajasree Swaminathan has developed a series of books that combines story-telling and visual representation of the elements as human characters. Along with hands-on activities, these books have created enthusiasm in her chemistry classes.
Chemistry Magnets - Making Chemistry Visible
Doug Ragan | Fri, 08/16/2019 - 22:16
Doug Ragan been using magnets of elements and subatomic particles for some time to help his students visualize what is happening at the particle level of chemistry. Download the files attached to the post and print out your own set of elements and particles!
Giving Students a Working Model to Explain Interactions Between Matter and Light
Scott Milam | Thu, 10/18/2018 - 22:27
Light is a challenging topic in chemistry. In this article, I share an outline of how I approach the content related to interactions between matter and light using activities, a simulation, demonstrations and whiteboards.
Early Use of AP Insight with Honors Chemistry: Atomic Mass, Mass Spectrometry, and Dalton's Postulates
Allison Tarvin | Mon, 09/12/2016 - 15:12
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, student handouts, and digitally-graded assessments.
How a Photon Is Created or Absorbed
Robert C. Rittenhouse
Walla Walla College, College Place, WA 99324
John C. Wright and Jon L. Holmes
University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706
Clarifying Electron Configurations
Dave Doherty | Fri, 04/29/2016 - 13:23
We’ve all seen and use the so-called Aufbau Diagram. It is a mnemonic used to remember the order of “filling” of atomic orbitals during the construction of the ground state electron configurations of the elements. The presentation of this diagram is largely disconnected from any physical meaning. Here’s what we tell our students: “Memorize the diagram, learn to use it, and you’re guaranteed to get the right answer.”
Conversations, Confessions, Confusions (and hopefully some Clarity) on Electronic Configurations
Tom Kuntzleman | Fri, 04/29/2016 - 10:06
A complete understanding of why each element has a particular electronic configurations is a very complex subject. Even so, some confusion regarding the electronic configurations of the elements may be alleviated by looking at the physical properties of the electronic orbitals.
The Search for the Final Element
Tom Kuntzleman | Thu, 01/28/2016 - 19:33
Have you ever wondered what is the theoretically largest possible value for the atomic number of an element? Using some introductory physics and algebra, you can get your students thinking about this idea.
Target Inquiry Activities
Chad Husting | Sun, 11/08/2015 - 13:32
Are kids learning? Given the time it takes to implement and grade the activity, do I get a lot of "educational moments" out of it? Does it fit into the culture of the classroom? Is there a great deal of "conceptually rich" material in the activity that students can build on? I believe that two activities I tried this week fit the bill.