Dear Dubious about Demos,

For starters, I appreciate how intentional you are being about demonstrations. It’s easy to get caught up in the “wow” or “coolness” factor, but the fact that you are focused on learning value already puts you in the right mindset.

I would agree that many of the classic “cool” demos can involve chemistry beyond the high school curriculum, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be used in your classroom or that you can’t keep them as part of your toolbox. The goal is to reframe how you use a specific demonstration to ignite, enhance or reinforce what the students are learning. Many demonstrations have multiple levels of chemistry within them, so adapting your explanation is the key to bringing out the learning potential for any one you may choose.

Let's take the thermite reaction as one example. The classic demo produces molten iron and a large amount of heat that not every high school or teacher is equipped to safely handle. Several organizations have listed the thermite demo as being too hazardous to use in high school. The safer version of the same reaction can be shown by smashing together two rusty iron objects, with one wrapped in aluminum foil. This simple version of the same chemical reaction can be used in place of the flashier classic version to show an exciting example of a single replacement reaction between 2 solids in one class, an oxidation-reduction reaction in a second class, and an introduction to thermochemistry in a third. The demonstration is the same for each class, but the framing and follow-up explanation of it changes to address various topics and course levels. You might even consider enhancing the safer demo by later showing a video of the more dangerous version to show just how exothermic the reaction is. (In the activity, Interesting Reactions Video Stations, a teacher combines the skill of chemical equation writing with video stations for several dangerous reactions, thus using the “wow” factor within the videos as motivation for the arguably less exciting practice of writing and balancing chemical equations.)

In short, you don’t need to teach all the advanced chemistry behind a demo to make it valuable. The magic happens when you connect what students can observe to what they already know — and let curiosity fill in the rest.

Just remember that when you are choosing and preparing for a demonstration, you should first evaluate its safety by using RAMP, an acronym for a simple tool that helps teachers evaluate the overall safety of using labs and demos with students. Learn about RAMP by watching the ACS Safety Video, RAMP for Teachers, and use the RAMP Template to guide your evaluation. You can also consult the ACS Guidelines for Chemical Laboratory Safety in Secondary Schools for additional advice.

Yours in Chemistry,

Labby