Chemistry Solutions
September 2021
Featured Article
Classroom Commentary
Heterogeneous Chemistry Classrooms: Experiments in Desegregation
How do we create community in a diverse chemistry classroom? How can our classroom dynamics lead to greater social justice in chemistry? ACS Conant Award winner Shea Wickelson shares stories and ideas from her experience teaching de-tracked high school chemistry.
Resource Features
Lessons by teachers with their inspiration for the activity or tips for how to implement the lesson.
In this article, the author shares about her use of a hands-on inquiry activity to assess students’ content knowledge. The activity tasks small groups of students with developing and conducting an experimental procedure to separate a mixture provided by the teacher. Read the article to learn more and to access the activity for use in your own classroom!
Classroom Commentary
Reflections and perspectives by teachers about topics that affect chemistry education.
My Connection to the U.S. National Chemistry Olympiad Program
Read about one veteran chemistry teacher’s 25-year experience with the U.S. National Chemistry Olympiad Program (USNCO). He shares his experience, insight, and an overview of the wonderful program. If you’ve ever thought about getting yourself or your students involved, now is your chance to learn more!
Finding Your Leadership Potential in Chemistry Education
As the pandemic closed the doors of schools across the nation, educators from across the world adapted to reach students in an uncertain world. Through the author’s journey in search of new teaching strategies, she gained insights into the importance of leadership in education — even after 14 years of teaching. In this article, she suggests that each teacher has something important to bring to the educational community, and that the current situation demands that new leaders emerge to help all of us reach our most vulnerable student populations.
Teacher 2 Teacher
@AACTconnect asked:
Are you familiar with the term Culturally Responsive Teaching? #teacher2teacher
— AACT (@AACTconnect)
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Editorial
AACT President Greta Glugoski-Sharp expresses her sincere thanks to the dedicated community of teachers for their extraordinary efforts and continued contributions to chemistry education throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. As we embark on a new school year, she urges teachers to be inclusive in their teaching practices and shares strategies to help them incorporate culturally responsive teaching methods in their instruction.
Simulation
In this simulation, students can create a variety of standard and non-standard condition galvanic/voltaic cells. Students will choose the metal and solution for each half cell, as well as the concentration of those solutions. They can build concentration cells and other non-standard cells, record the cell potential from the voltmeter, and observe the corresponding oxidation and reduction half reactions.
Chemistry Fun
In this activity, students will analyze a collection of clues and attempt to determine the correct word that corresponds to each one. As a connection to chemistry, each of the answers contain the unit “mol” within the word.