Join AACT at ChemEd 2017

Are you planning to attend the ChemEd 2017 Conference at South Dakota State University in Brookings, South Dakota this summer? AACT will be there too, along with many AACT members!

You can find us in the exhibit hall at booth #7 and at the following workshops we are planning for teachers of high school chemistry:

Monday, July 31

• Take Home Labs with Amiee Modic
  8:00–10:00, Room SAV 250
  The scope and size of the chemistry curriculum is continuously expanding, but not the time given to teach the material. Hear about one teacher's solution to this problem: implementing take home labs as a part of the curriculum. In addition to the obvious curricular focus, learn about several other great aspects of take home labs including parent and family involvement, the increased relevance reinforced by the use of “real” materials, and the opportunity for our students to experience science as something that happens everywhere, not just in the science classroom. You will also hear about the development of the labs, go through several ready to use take home labs for both Chemistry 1 and AP Chemistry, and learn how to incorporate this idea into your curriculum.
  
  
• AACT Booth (#7): 10:00–2:00
  Join us in the exhibition hall at the AACT booth to learn more about membership benefits and spin the wheel to win some AACT bling!
  
  
• Incorporating Engineering Practices in High School Chemistry with Steve Sogo and Bruce Wellman
  10:15–12:00, Room SAV 41
  This webinar discusses the value of incorporating NGSS Engineering Practices into high school chemistry classes. Examples ranging from 20-minute pencil-and-paper activities to multi-week projects will demonstrate various "flavors" of engineering that are suited for a wide range of budgets and student ability levels.
  
  
• Safety First:Evaluating Online Sources and Practicing Demos (Part 1) with Jeff Bracken
  4:15–5:00 in Room SROA
  YouTube seems to have become the go-to source for chemistry teachers to find demonstrations and laboratory experiments for their classrooms. Unfortunately, most of the videos that they find do not follow the safety guidelines and laboratory techniques that we teach to our students. Additionally, they rarely include chemical safety instructions.Join us as we watch videos of popular experiments and demonstrations and analyze them to see if they follow accepted safety guidelines and utilize proper laboratory techniques. This workshop will be an interactive mixture of videos, lecture and discussion in a classroom setting. This is a two part workshop.Part 1 will take place in a classroom and include videos, lecture, and discussion. Part 2 will take place in a wet lab and include hands on demonstrations and experiments.
  
  
• AACT Booth (#7): 5:00–7:00
  Join us in the exhibition hall at the AACT booth to learn more about membership benefits and spin the wheel to win some AACT bling!

Tuesday, August 1

• Safety First:Evaluating Online Sources and Practicing Demos (Part 2) with Jeff Bracken
  8:30–12:00, Room SAV 237
  YouTube seems to have become the go-to source for chemistry teachers to find demonstrations and laboratory experiments for their classrooms. Unfortunately, most of the videos that they find do not follow the safety guidelines and laboratory techniques that we teach to our students. Additionally, they rarely include chemical safety instructions. Join us as we watch videos of popular experiments and demonstrations and analyze them to see if they follow accepted safety guidelines and utilize proper laboratory techniques. This workshop will be an interactive mixture of videos, lecture and discussion in a classroom setting. Part 2 of this workshop will be a hands-on lab practicum that allows teachers of chemistry to perform common demonstrations and experiments safely and correctly in a wet lab.
  
  
• AACT Booth (#7): 10:00–2:00
  Join us in the exhibition hall at the AACT booth to learn more about membership benefits and spin the wheel to win some AACT bling!
  
  
• Building a Periodic Table Unit Plan Using American Association of Chemistry Teachers (AACT) Resources
  3:15–5:00, Room SAV 282
  Building a new unit plan for chemistry can be a difficult undertaking and must include lectures, practice problems, classroom demonstrations, student activities, and chemical experiments. The classroom resources available on the American Association of Chemistry Teachers (AACT) website can help you find all the materials you need to create unit plans. Join two former high school chemistry teachers who are now part of the AACT staff as they show you how to put together a successful unit plan using the lessons, activities, labs, demonstrations, projects, videos, and animations that are available on the AACT website.

Wednesday, August 2

• Chemistry in a Petri Dish: Time for Student Investigation with Jenelle Ball
  3:15–5:00, Room SAV 250
  This workshop will show you how to transform the “Chemistry in a Petri Dish” experiments, which originally focused on acid rain into a full lesson using other AACT classroom resources. It will also provide basic information about how to run the experiments three ways and include alignment with the Next Generation Science Standards. The NGSS calls for students to be involved in developing and implementing investigations that center on real world problems. These experiments are easy for the teacher to prepare and are fast enough that students can run them several times in a class period, giving them an opportunity for investigation.