Looking to change up your titration lab? Citric acid is very common in candy and other foods. Students will be engaged in using titration to find the amount of the acid in Mentos Now or other candy. Student and teacher documents are provided to help you use the activity with your own students.
As many teachers are preparing for the possibility of teaching online next semester, we are revisiting posts from the ChemEd X archives like this one that might be of help. The author has updated this activity by adding notes specifically to help those teaching remotely. - Radioactivity is a topic in chemistry that can be difficult to teach. This activity offers a data-driven approach with a simulation students can use in school or in an online learning environment. This can be used to give students an authentic lab experience for them to determine there are three types of ionizing radiation without direct instruction.
The unit of acids and bases is difficult for most students in Advanced Placement Chemistry. The variety of various calculations can be overwhelming. The Acid Base Speed Dating Activity engages students in completing a series of problems. Each student is assigned a specific solution and then determines their individual pH to complete their personal “Solution Biography.” Then the speed dating begins! For each date, the students need to find a specific match and determine their combined pH value.
Students can build their own Hoffman apparatus. An animation of the electrolysis on a particulate level is available to show students before, during or after students perform the electrolysis.
Heidi Parks offers a soap-making lab or activity that can be run in a chemistry class with 25-30 students working at the same time. She usually does this activity right before spring break, as it provides enough time for the soap to harden and cure (high school students are impatient to use their soaps right away, which you should not do with cold process soap). She has used this soap making activity at different points in the curriculum: during intermolecular forces, during acids and bases, and during stoichiometry.
The lab was a success as I watched startled students produce the so-called barking dog sound as they combusted the hydrogen gas in their inverted test tubes.
Students will build models of isomers while the instructor walks around from station to station to critique the models. If the model is incorrect, the students rebuild until they get it right. The paper that accompanies this assignment is very easy to grade.
Isotopes Matter is a digital learning tool, developed by IUPAC Isotopic Periodic Table, designed to explain isotopes as well as their importance. This resource incorporates mass spectroscopy data into each of the key ideas as well as provides multiple examples as to how varying isotopes are commonly used.
Just this week I'm reviewing equilibrium with my IB Chemistry seniors after they finished some summer study on the topic. One of our classes was spent manipulating a classic equilibrium involving copper ions and a copper-chloride complex ion.
I am a very firm believer that the world of physical science can be visualized and is an excellent medium for teaching students to model and to picture what happens at the molecular level. The first topic we decided to explore was balancing chemical equations. This seems like such a simple topic to chemistry teachers but I have found that it can be quite challenging for many of my inner city students. The first thing they ask me for is a list of rules that they can follow. We can discuss the problems of algorithmic teaching in a later post! For the time being let’s talk about how to get students to understand why they need to balance equations and discuss what we can call “Conservation of Atoms”.
