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Using "The Disappearing Spoon"

Started almost 6 years ago by Kimberly Duncan.

Hi there - does anyone out there use Sam Kean's book "The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements" with their chemistry classes? If so, can you share how you use it and any tools or methods to help the students read the materials? Thanks in advance for sharing.

3 Comments

  • Kimberly Duncan

    Posted almost 6 years ago

    Awesome! Thanks for sharing. We will be having Sam Kean present a webinar about the book next January to kick off the International Year of the Periodic Table. I am hoping to find a couple of teachers who use the book talk about what they do with their students.

  • Jeremy Wolf

    Posted almost 6 years ago

    Here is that other resource that I use from time to time.

  • Jeremy Wolf

    Posted almost 6 years ago

    I do, or at least I used to. Our school went through a phase where every course had a required summer reading list. In the science department, we went though a bunch of different recommendations, until I settled on The Disappearing Spoon. With the required summer reading, we didn't have to prepare any specific assignment. I found that the students who read the book came to class with a little taste of the coolness of chemistry. I would make references to the book a bunch of times, as well and when we got to the chapter on the periodic table, there would be many references to Sam Kean. I will attach a couple of things that may help. Jeremy