Embrace Challenge Chemistry section
Links to:
Other people's stuff
Chabot Space and Science Center July 24-25, 2007 (Tanya Phillip's Workshop)
Chabot Space and Science Center June 20-21, 2006 (Tanya Phillips's Workshop)
Melissa's crap
Below are links to documents on various lessons or topics.
Disclaimer- all of these activities may need revising for your situation. Also check for accuracy.
If you see a document and you know someone else should get the credit for it, please email me to tell me who deserves credit. I may have typed up these documents, but many of the ideas came from someone else.
| Long term projects | Standards based tests (CA) |
Yes, there is still a lot of old code here. When I have time, I intend to update it to HTML5.
Beginning documents (links are to doc)
Wake Up!- the paper used to gather answers for warm up questions
Gotta Clue- the paper used to gather answers for the end of the period quiz
Backside to Wake Up and Gotta Clue
Symbols they had to memorize for class- I did not believe students were meant to memorize the periodic table because it is analygous to a piece of equipment. They were in class to learn how to use this equipment. However, to be proficient with the language of chemistry, they needed to learn enough of the alphabet to be literate.
General Class Rules- I went overboard with giving out class rules. My grading system is somewhat explained here, too.
Example of a Pre-lab- their pre-labs were pretty poor to begin with, so after doing this lab I gave them a copy of what an appropriate pre-lab would look like.
Equipment List - I can not take full credit for the ideas in this list. I believe this list was created by working with Living by Chemistry. I used this lab to introduce how to use lab buckets. Each lab bucket had 5 -7 pieces of equipment. A lab group became experts with their equipment and then presented it to the class. Each object was accompanied by a card that listed a description of it. I believe the cards also had a picture of the equipment on them to help students figure out which object matched the card.
(return to chemistry table of page links)
Surveys- I tried to gather student input whenever possible. Although I am not putting my physical science lessons online, I have to recall that once I was asked how I figured out what to teach my physical science students (before the CA standards were published.) Simply put- I asked them what they wanted to learn. That is how I determined what to teach my kids; I knew there was not enough time to teach EVERYTHING so why torture them with topics they are not interested in learning? (links are to doc)
Take a vote- sheet asking students how they wanted to spend time after the testing season
Survey for chemistry students at end of year
Survey about the nuclear chemistry project (for students)
Survey for chemistry students about projects they want to do
Survey for chemical science students about the course
Significant Figures; Scientific Notation; Dimensional Analysis- Two of the topics I became very adamant about my students learning are significant figures and dimensional analysis. I understand that many teachers see sig figs as a waste of time; however I wonder if that is because they don't understand them or how to teach them so that kids will understand. (links are to doc)
Significant figures, scientific notation, dimensional analysis notes
Using a calculator with scientific notation
Math with scientific notation answers
Practice with significant figures
Answers to practice with significant figures
How to read a graduated cylinder- Since students were not comfortable with equipment before entering our class, this lab served two purposes: present various scales so they can get an idea of what it means to estimate and then determine the number of significant figures in that measurement.
What is on sig fig/ sci notation test
Notes on dimensional analysis part 1 - this document is to help explain what a conversion factor is and how they are mathematically determined
Dimensional analysis worksheet 1
Dimensional analysis worksheet 2
Metric Conversions- I need to find this note sheet - I found having students memorize metrics to be a waste of time. Instead I taught them how to use this note sheet with dimensional analysis to do metric conversions properly. A copy of the top half of the sheet was available in their testing folder. Naturally if they took the time to memorize metric conversions they would go faster on the tests, but for some reason having students memorize metrics was like pulling teeth without novacaine.
Atom notes- this copy does not have a diagram on it showing the nucleus and electron orbitals, but it is easy to draw as you go over the notes with students.
History of atom chart- this information is adapted from Living by Chemistry
Bulls-eye atom of Bromine
Lewis Dot atom of Bromine
Emission Spectroscopy lab info sheet
Emission Spectroscopy pre-lab and data sheet
Flame test lab for chemical science
Electron Configuration worksheet- this worksheet is something like parts of 3 worksheets merged together. I can not claim to be the brains behind any parts of the worksheet so if you are the one with the brains and want credit or want me to remove the document- let me know.
Powerpoint: Electron configurations connected to the periodic table
Ions- puzzle pieces
I made a few templates that can be cut apart and used to represent ions. This helped my students understand why MgCl2 had two Cl- ions. With the pieces, an indent means an electron is lost, an outdent means an electron is gained.
- Mono-valent and di-valent ions
- Mono, di, and tri-valent ions
- Some mono and di-valent ions filled in
- Appropriate for a Cu cycle lab (maybe)
Advertise your family- a quick in-class exercise for students to come up with the strengths of their chemical family
Lecture notes for Trends of the Periodic Table
Data on atomic radius and ionization energy for graphing
Student project- family, group, region presentation
Questions on Periodic Table trends
Trend Practice worksheet
Periodic Table Scavenger Hunt (adapted from Tayna's idea)
Periodic Table Scavenger Hunt Sheet to record student work
(return to chemistry table of page links)
Ionic, Covalent, and Lewis dot drawing review
Using marshmallows to understand shapes of molecules
Polar water exercises- adapted from Project Wet
Mole jars mini-labs- My first year of teaching moles in a department that had no equipment to share, I got a hold of some plastic tissue culture flasks and chemicals. I assigned my honors chemistry students to weigh a mole of each chemical and put it in the flask. Well...let's say they were a little clueless so some of the jars were quite a bit off. I saw this as an opportunity to learn about human error and how it is ok to make mistakes as long as we learn from them. So future students learned from my previous students' mistakes by weighing the mole jars and determining if there truly was a mole in the jar or not. I enjoyed telling them stories about where some of the students went on to college or graduate school. You see, not all of my students who went onto graduate school in science knew how to measure a mole when they were 16.
Moles of zinc in a penny- I had students make an "X". Some people just have students scrape the edges off of a penny. If you have the pennies go overnight, agitate the beaker carefully so you can dislodge any hydrogen bubbles trapped inside the penny.
Nuclear Processes project outline (based on CA standards)
Changes to nuclear chemistry project
Using WWW to find information on nuclear chemistry
Notes for alpha, beta, gamma project presenters
Self-grade for nuclear chem project
What is a nuclear process teacher document for Chemical Science
What is a nuclear process teacher document for chem sci ANSWER key
(return to chemistry table of page links)
Forming Ioinic and Covalent compounds and naming them
Transition Metals worksheet 1
Transition Metals worksheet 2
What's in a Name? (ionic, covalent, organic)
Balancing equations for chemical science notes
Determining types of chemical reactions notes
Reactivity of certain metals mini-lab
Reactivity of certain metals mini-lab no air in data table
Grading requirements for chem rxn mini-labs- I recall this being a nightmare to grade. I highly recommend you look at what I did and simplify it so that you don't go insane.
Stoichiometry homework part 1
Stoichiometry homework part 2
Stoichiometry homework part 3
Kinetic Molecular Theory (KMT) drawings
Gas law Demo notes
Notes to go with shortened Gas Law Demos
Review of solving math in chemistry (focuses on gas laws)
Mg and HCl- will link to someplace else b/c of copyright issues
Solubility curve mini-lab with an unknown
Copy of solutility data for lab
Titration lab- I did not write this; it is strongly borrowed from someone- if you know the rightful owner please let me know so they can be appropriately credited. This particular lab is actually quite good. It actually works.
Data and Calculations table for the Titration lab
Prelab questions to go with the Titration lab
Directions for the Acid and Base Titration lab write up
Answers to acids and bases overview
Calculating pH answers
Instructions for nanotechnology project
Sign-up sheet for nanotechnology project ideas
Small Scale Labs- I used the Addison Wesley small scale lab book. The lab numbers on these documents refer to the labs in that book.
Small scale lab 1 follow-up questions
Small scale lab 10 supplement
Experiment 16 guide (heats of reaction)
Small scale lab 20 supplement
Experiment 21 guide (unknowns)
Small scale lab 23 supplement
Small scale lab 23 follow-up questions
Microscale Preparation of some esters (from LBC and Flinn)
Electrolytes lab instructions
Electrolytes reaction surface
Thermochemistry, entropy, enthalpy
Equilibrium Constants explained
Equilibrium small scale lab (from Flinn)
Beverage lab information- in one of Flinn's Chemtopics books there is a beverage lab. We did it early on in the year and apparently my students needed to see an example of what I expected to receive in a lab report. Although this was given to them after they turned in their labs, since they had the prior experience, the lab report could mean something to them.Chem labs Melissa routinely does
Growing crystals in gels instructions (also see Tanya's lab instructions)
Growing crystals in gels equation sheet (also see Tanya's lab instructions)
Copper cycle lab equations; I can't put up the copper cycle lab instructions because they are copyrighted by Living by Chemistry. You can probably find several protocols for copper cycle labs online.
Demos to emphasize energy of reactions
Halloween Demos- just a few ideas
Extra credit- pressure (I RARELY offered extra credit- this is one example of what they could do for extra credit.)
Long term projects
Submit an application- Each honors student was expected to do this mock application. It was modeled after a real application. Students were asked to do this because they were capable and in many cases eligible for consideration into summer programs. I also wanted them to not be afraid of applying for things merely because there was an application to fill out. Since they wrote a personal statement for this application, they had something to work with and revise if it was good enough to be used on future applications. Only a few students actually followed through and applied to summer programs. These students went to programs at UC Davis, UC Berkeley, NASA, and Santa Clara University among other schools that I can't remember at the moment.
- Submit an application instructions/grade sheet
- Request for letter of recommendation- Although my colleagues hated this part, I asked students to go find two teachers, one of whom was to be a math or science teacher who would be willing to write a positive letter of recommendation. Students had to just find the person, not get actual letters unless they were seriously applying for a summer program. This letter is one I put in all teachers' boxes to warn them of the upcoming search for folks who would do recommendations. I had honors chem students as sophomores and I felt it was the right age to get them to start being aware of the importance of letting adults know them such that an adult could really write an authentic letter of recommendation.
- Letter of recommendation signatures
Do a Demo- Students in honors chem were expected to pick a demo, come in at lunch and after school to practice it, write a paper explaining the chemistry in the demo, and actually do the demo in front of the class. I can not find the do a demo assignment itself, but I did find the papers where students signed up and the rubric for the written report. The demo source books I used are the ones sold by ACS (volumes 1 and 2). There were a few restrictions- no demos with mercury, alkali metals, lead, or any other toxic substance. They were allowed to "blow things up" if it was a part of the demo instructions (methanol cannon, lycopodium in a can, etc.)
- Written instructions/rubric
- Students sign up sheet for demo
- An older version of demo instructions- I have a feeling these are not the most up to date which implies they may need improvement.
- Do a demo update
(return to chemistry table of page links)
Book chat- Honors chem students were expected to read either a fiction or a non-fiction book. They made an appointment with me for a 10 minute book chat where they told me about the book. I had a science book library from which they could choose a book. If they did not use one of my books, I had to approve of the book before they came for the chat.
Make a book for kids (links coming soon...)
Nanotechnology project- this first started as a project on chemical processes, but as the field of nanotechnology grew, I changed the project to focus on nanotech. Similar projects can be done such as ones on chemical and industrial processes or technology.
- Nanotechnology project description
- Nanotechnology project ideas
- Nanotech project idea sign-up sheet
- Grading guidelines (rubric) for nanotech project
- Websites that have nanotech info (not updated since 2004)
CA standards based testing
When the standards movement hit my school, I tried to do as I was encouraged...I mapped standards to test questions. This method was very rough and somewhat archaic. I am not putting test examples here to show off. I'm hoping someone can expand on my idea and make it better. If you do improve these tests, please send me a copy.
With this process, I gave small tests on specific topics. Students had two opportunities to take every test. If they showed up on the day the test was given in class, they could come at lunch or after school to do a re-test. If they were absent the day of the test, then they could only take the test once at lunch or after school. This method follows the methodology that one needs to give students multiple opportunities to learn information and to demonstrate mastery of the information. The idea is that students would come in for tutoring after the first test so they could gain mastery of the material before they tood the second test. The best of the test scores was kept and recorded.
In addition, feedback was given to students on which standards they had mastered because every question was mapped to a standard. If the standard did not exist for CA, I made it. For example, there are no CA standards on significant figures, but I thought it was important to take class time and teach it. So I made a set of standards for significant figures, dimensional analysis, and some other things that CA chose to not put in the high school chemistry standards.
When I first started doing this method, their grades were recorded per standard. Eventually that became too time consuming so I would list scores in the gradebook by test and not by standard. For my records, I would record each standard's grade, but for putting them in the computer, it was registered by test. In addition, I worked on a base 4 (4-3-2-1-0 points) grading system. This system automatically builds in a curve if you look at point values = to percentages. It is really complicated and at this moment I am not sure how to explain it online. Plus I really don't want to get emails from people telling me the flaws in my system. I just know it worked for me, my students got feedback as accurate as possible as to how well they have mastered learning standards.
The tests:
- Parts of a lab report test
- Parts of a lab report review sheet
- Matter test
- Matter test make-up
- Matter test review sheet
- Significant figures, no calculator test
- Significant figures, scientific notation, with math test
- Significant figures, scientific notation, with math make-up test
- Scientific notation, no calculator test
- Significant figures, scientific notation, with math test
- Sig figs, sci not, with math make-up test
- Atom basics
- Atom basics make-up test (Note: there would be possibly up to 6 or more versions of tests because I gave multiple versions during the day of the test and another one for make-up tests.)
- Atom basics review sheet
- Point values on atoms test
- Isotopes review sheet
- Isotopes and specific heat test
- Review sheet dimensional analysis and moles
- Standards on the atomic and molecular structure test
- Periodic table basics test
- Periodic table basics make-up test
- Review sheet for periodic table basics test
- Chemistry P supplement for term 1 final (A few comments about the pacing of the college-prep classes I taught...they went very slowly during the first term. We were on a 4 x 4 which meant I saw my students for 90 minutes a day, 5 days a week. If my students had learned material in the K-8 science standards before they reached me, I could have gone faster. I also chose to include sig figs, dimensional analysis, lab reports, and various other things that other teachers may fly though or only touch on briefly. So please don't make fun of my teaching style because I got through in 9 weeks what you are able to cover in 4.)
- Chem Sci supplement for final (Chem Sci was not college-prep.)
Review Sheets or Tests that were given before I went on the standards' based kick (not mapped to standards):
Chemistry specific links (to be added when I get the time- for now check out the chemistry section on the links page)
Links suggested by Tanya Philips
Nancy Clark's teaching chemistry website