Chemistry Solutions

March 2025 | Editorial

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

By Aimee Modic

© Shutterstock.com/Jacek Kita

I often feel like so much of my teaching career has gone by in a blur. As teachers, we make multiple life-affecting decisions each day: handling attendance, tardies, and class interruptions, grading papers, planning lessons, setting up labs, and more. The school year can fly by, and then entire years can fly by as well. Even so, I still remember struggling through those first few years of teaching, trying to “find my groove” and develop the teaching persona that would carry me through the years.

Granted, when I first started teaching in 1984, we barely had computers and the Internet was in rudimentary form — but there were still a lot of resources that were available. It was a matter of finding them and deciding whether they were worth implementing, editing for implementation, or ignoring.

Today, we are all still faced with those same decisions, but the sheer number of available options can be daunting, and it is easy to become paralyzed by indecision. Therefore, I want to share a few suggestions, especially for teachers early in their careers, about choosing teaching materials to use in your classroom. First, I suggest you try to choose something vetted by other chemistry teachers; second, try the material yourself before using it with your students; and third, and perhaps most importantly, choose something that you can edit or modify to reflect who you are as a teacher.

Be sure your resources are vetted

I will never forget the day I was looking for a teaching resource related to a reaction with baking soda. I wanted to see how many different labs or demos I could use that involved baking soda, since it is inexpensive and ranks low on the hazard scale. A friend from school, who teaches calculus and culinary arts, knew about my search for these particular resources and sent me a link to a video on Instagram that she thought would be helpful.

The video claimed that if you inserted anything into the “concoction” it would “turn the concoction into ice in a matter of seconds.” They mentioned as examples sticking a strawberry or your index finger into the concoction. There were instructions in the video, but the chemistry explanation was completely wrong.

What actually happened in the demo involved combining baking soda and vinegar to form sodium acetate — however, this was never explained in the video. A supersaturated solution was formed, and it wasn’t ice, but instead was the excess sodium acetate coming out of the solution. Also conveniently omitted from the explanation was the substantial increase in temperature that would occur when the crystals began to form.

Since I knew the chemistry explanation for what I observed, I was not taken in by the false claims in the video. Indeed, I could see how it might have been confusing for teachers who were not as familiar with the subject area. My inner chemistry teacher cringed at the possibility that someone who was new to teaching science would see this and feel compelled to do it for their students, creating a misconception that might never be dispelled. (Although I still find myself thinking about tasking my AP students with disproving it!)

When you think you have found a good teaching resource and you aren’t sure if it has been vetted, it’s best practice to ask a colleague with more experience, or check in the AACT Resource Library to see if there is something similar. AACT resources are made for teachers by teachers, and are peer-reviewed — so you know for sure that anything you choose will work. A bonus feature is that you can save the resources as a Word file so you can edit the document, tailoring it to the specific needs of your classroom and your students.

Try it yourself!

In my experience, teachers often find teaching resources to use on a whim, which makes it so important to test it out yourself before using it with your students. I can speak from experience: once, when I was looking for some additional practice problems for students, I downloaded a set of questions and answers from an online source. I forgot to check the answers, however, and unfortunately found errors later when my students were questioning their results. I had to own that mistake!

Similarly, you don’t have to search hard to find stories of demonstrations that went wrong in the chemistry classroom. This is especially common (and dangerous!) with demonstrations and experiments involving flames, so be sure to test any demonstration before using it. That way, you’ll know what the potential pitfalls are and, most importantly, what safety precautions will be needed. If you are testing a demonstration for the first time, please be sure you have a colleague nearby and they are aware you are practicing, so they can check on you. If you need a piece of safety equipment that you don’t have, please choose a different option, rather than risk having an accident. You might also check out the ACS Guidelines for Chemical Safety in Secondary Schools.

Vetted resources from a reliable source are preferred, as they have the recommended safety precautions and may also include additional options in terms of amounts of materials or alternative chemicals or equipment that could be used.

I used the AACT demonstration, Understanding Limiting Reactants, a few years ago and as I was practicing it, occurred to me that I could modify it to make it more hands-on for both levels of my classes. I modified the demo in two ways. For my on-level students, I had all the materials, and everyone was assigned a task of measuring vinegar, weighing the baking soda, or filling the balloons, etc. Meanwhile, for my advanced students, I had materials available at the lab stations, gave the students some parameters, and assigned them the task of recreating the result of the demonstration (of which I had earlier taken a picture).

I would never have made these modifications in my previous school, due to prohibitive class size; but in my small private school, my class size made it possible. My students are in the lab multiple times each week, so it made sense to make these changes, since they were consistent with how I teach.

Reflect on who you are as a teacher

No matter if you have been teaching for 2 months or 20 years, I believe that reflecting on who you are as a teacher, or want to become, is critical for professional growth. You may have had a favorite teacher when you were in school, or a colleague you currently admire. If you are just getting started as a teacher, or even deep into your career, you can get useful insights into how you want your persona to manifest itself by attending conferences like your state science teacher convention, ChemEd, or the Biennial Conference on Chemical Education. You can see what inspires you, what you definitely do not want to do, and get ideas for editing.

Several years ago, I watched a very simple demonstration by Dr. Ron Fursteneau and thought I wanted to do it exactly like he did — but it would have required me to build a set of stairs with a window. I kept thinking about it, but eventually I realized that I didn’t have the skill set required to build what I wanted. A few years later I watched Tom Kuntzleman do a different demonstration that involved some of the same chemicals and watched him manipulate the denser gases with his hands. I now do my version of the demonstration that Dr. Fursteneau did, but with a less technical set up that allows me to manipulate the gases the way Tom showed us. It is my own amalgamation, and it works great for me!

I find that students have a sense about whether their teachers are authentic and teaching with passion, versus just doing something to check the proverbial box. I encourage you to think about the unique characteristics you bring to the classroom and try to approach activities, labs, and demonstrations from that perspective. This is true even when you download a slide show to explain some challenging concept. Remember that the slideshow was created by someone else who had a particular goal in mind and a unique frame of reference, so it’s wise to go through it and see if you need to make any additions, deletions, or tweaks to make it your own. I had to do this several years ago, when a very large portion of the documents I use for teaching were lost in a technology catastrophe. I felt like a brand-new teacher every day, because I had to re-create, borrow, and edit all the time. It was hard, but I needed my students to feel like the material was genuine, a gift from me to them.

In this issue of Chemistry Solutions, you'll find articles from your peers who have reflected on their teaching experience. I hope these insights will help you discover new approaches and refine your own teaching practices. In these articles, you can:

So, as you are searching for activities, demonstrations, lessons, or even practice problems, start by choosing ones that have been vetted by other chemistry education professionals. Then try using the materials yourself, and do something to make them feel authentically you. You will not be disappointed. In fact, you might find yourself patting yourself on the back for a job well done!

Aimee Modic


Aimee Modic
President-Elect, AACT
2024–2025