New AACT Resources to Help Teach Stoichiometry (2023)

As chemistry teachers around the country plan activities for their students, AACT will highlight resources from our high school resource library that can be used to reinforce topics in different units throughout the school year. Our last post highlighted resources to support a unit on Chemical Equations. We will now focus on new resources to use in a Stoichiometry unit plan.

When introducing limiting reactants, start with the Limiting Reactants animation. The animation starts with an example of building a bike and ends with particle diagrams of reactions to show what the excess and limiting reactants are. Students can follow along and make connections with the Limiting Reactants animation activity. 

To help students engage in critical thinking with stoichiometry and introduce an element of competition, the Chemical Reaction Soda Bottle Boat Race is a fun addition to the lab. Students will design and build a soda bottle boat with the goal of having the fastest boat to get to the other end of the rain gutter racetrack. Students complete stoichiometric calculations to determine an appropriate amount of “fuel” to power their boat.

If students have extra time after completing an in-class activity, have the Mole Mischief Puzzle available for them to complete. In this activity, students will analyze a collection of clues and attempt to determine the correct word that corresponds to each one. Each of the answers contain the unit “mol” within the word.

We hope that these activities can help you to reinforce several of the topics covered in a unit about Stoichiometry. Most of these lessons were made possible by great teachers who shared their own resources. We need your help to keep the collection growing. Do you have a great demonstration, activity, or lesson related to this topic that you would like to share with the community? Please send it along for consideration.