Popular Resources For Teaching Chemistry Basics
By AACT on August 20, 2025
As chemistry teachers around the country head back into their classrooms and begin planning activities for their students, AACT will be highlighting resources from our high school resource library that can be used to reinforce topics in different units throughout the school year. We’re beginning the year with the most popular articles, simulations, and activities that could be used to support a Chemistry Basics unit.
Throughout the years, AACT has shared news articles full of resources and articles that could be used to help teachers with topics they will teach throughout the school year. This article will highlight the most popular AACT resources to use during an introductory unit on the fundamentals of chemistry.
Laboratory Safety
One of the most important fundamentals for a chemistry course is keeping students safe in the laboratory. In the ""Lab Safety: You're Fired" activity, students will read an account of a laboratory tour which details numerous safety infractions. They will be charged with identifying the safety violations and determining which scientist working in the lab should be investigated.
Chemistry Puzzles
To start off the year, students can work independently on the ChemConnections puzzles, the Chemistry Emoji pictionary, or test their measurement knowledge with the Crack the Code activity.
Physical and Chemical Changes
Understanding the difference between a physical property and a chemical property and the accompanying changes is an important foundation for students to have before investigating chemical changes at a deeper level. A set of demos will be performed so students can visualize the signs of each type of change.
We hope that these resources can help you to reinforce several of the topics covered in a unit about Chemistry Basics. Most of these lessons were made possible by great teachers who shared their own resources. Do you have a great demonstration, activity, or lesson that you would like to share with the community? Please send it along for consideration.