Chemistry Solutions
March 2015
Featured Article
Resource Feature
Teaching Students the Relevance of Chemistry
Chemistry has had a tremendous impact on history and continues to impact our lives. Learn about activities that emphasize the relevance and importance of chemistry, and enhance students' excitement for learning the subject.
Resource Features
Lessons by teachers with their inspiration for the activity or tips for how to implement the lesson.
Set up student understanding of gas behavior and Avogadro's hypothesis using gas density, gas compressibility, and the law of combining volumes.
Classroom Commentary
Reflections and perspectives by teachers about topics that affect chemistry education.
How much is too much when it comes to simplifying content in chemistry teaching? This teacher with 15 years of teaching experience shares some specific examples of what she has found.
Read about a chemistry teacher's transition from a traditional teaching model to a technology-based model using Chromebooks as learning tools for every student.
Nuts & Bolts
Functional tips you can implement in your classroom.
Here are some ideas for designing a high school chemistry curriculum, including topic order and depth of coverage for regular and honors level classes.
How do you gauge whether students are learning what you intend for them to learn? This article, the third installment in a series of articles, offers ideas from an experienced teacher.
Tech Tips
How to incorporate technology into your chemistry classroom.
Energy is a hard-to-define concept that proves difficult for students to understand and hard for teachers to teach. This article introduces readers to a website that provides a number of resources to help teach the difficult concepts.
In My Element
Stories about teachers finding their way to the chemistry classroom.
A chemist became a high school chemistry teacher after multiple layoffs from reserach positions. The stability and inspiration she experiences in the classroom keeps her coming back each day.
Teacher 2 Teacher
@AACTconnect Asked:
How do you handle snow days or other unexpected canceled classes? Are students expected to check for assignments online? Is it a day off?
You answered on Twitter:
Students are expected to check my Google site morning of a snow day and/or Twitter for updates. Many rarely do though! #chemsnowday@MeyersChemistry
You answered on Facebook:
I tell them at the beginning of winter that I will 'Remind' them on a snow day about our plans. Depends how many snow days we have in a year as to what message they get!...
Mary
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Editorial
Even though chemistry content hasn’t changed in a way that affects a K–12 curriculum in more than 100 years, how we teach students now looks very different than it did 25 years ago.
Simulation
In the March 2015 issue, students explore what happens when electrons within a generic atom are excited from their ground state. They will see that when an electron relaxes from an excited state to its ground state, energy is released in the form of electromagnetic radiation.
Chemistry Fun
AACT members can download excerpts of Larry Gonick and Craig Criddle's "Cartoon Guide to Chemistry."