September 2021 Xchange

The September 2021 Xchange highlights some of the contributions that have recently been published on ChemEd X along with some posts from the archives. We hope you will take a moment to check in and see what you may have missed. 

     

In this ChemBasics Talk, Krystle Moos offers everything necessary to plan a unit on the topic including linked NGSS standards, introductory activities and handouts, manipulative activities, practice problems, links to real world context, a lab and an assortment of videos. Watch the recording and access resources she shared.

     

Learning about the periodic table and how the elements are arranged are both essential to success in chemistry. In this ChemBasics Talk, Rachmad Tjachyadi offers everything necessary to plan a unit on the topic including linked NGSS standards, introductory activities and handouts, student and teacher notes, and manipulative activities. Register for this hour long Zoom meeting to be held October 7th at 8pm EST.

     

The familiar soda fountains that can be produced by adding Mentos candies to plastic bottles of carbonated beverages can also be produced by adding objects to carbonated beverages in aluminum cans. A variety of simple methods for producing soda fountains from cans are described.

     

The Wisconsin initiative for Science Literacy has published Science Climate Concepts Fit Your Classroom - A Workbook for Teachers. This is a free online Workbook, readily available for secondary teachers and college faculty. This workbook includes many hands on activities that incorporate traditional science classroom concepts within the context of climate science.

     

A primary goal of modern education is to prepare students for a globally competitive society. Importantly we must ask questions such as, “who is doing the hard intellectual work in the classroom?” and "what does doing hard intellectual work look like?"

     

Check out the solution to Chemical Mystery #18: Peek A Boo Blue! 

     

With COVID creating the need for many virtual conferences over the last year and a half, this upcoming summer may provide the opportunity for teachers to return to face-to-face events. If you are a teacher looking for funding to attend a conference, check out these opportunities offered by the ACS Division of Chemical Education.

     

Like many AP Chemistry teachers, Melissa Hemling was not fond of teaching Photoelectron Spectroscopy (PES). Surprisingly, she fell in love with teaching PES in AP Chemistry after making an old-school change.

     

Stephanie O'Brien took a tip from the elementary school teachers and created literacy stations to help increase the amount of reading and writing in her classroom. Literacy centers support students by arming them with the tools to utilize when examining text documents, charts, graphs, pictures etc. to take the content and make it comprehensible. She provides examples of literacy centers she uses in her classroom.

     

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