Celebrate Earth Day, which is on Monday, April 22, 2013. Earth Day was first officially recognized on April 22, 1970. This year the theme is "Our Earth: Handle with Care." The topics this year include water, air, plants/soil, and recycling.
If you haven't seen them yet, check out the final release of the Next Generation Science Standards. There is helpful information at the site. My home state of Michigan is currently asking for public input in order to plan support for implementing NGSS.
Whether it is a completely unique idea or just a twist on an old classic, engage in collaboration with other chemistry teachers around the world and publish your work. There are many venues and the pool of precollege chemistry instructors that are already contributing is relatively small.
Moving from the computer lab to iPad? Then you need some apps. I have found two free apps that I use to replace computer-based gas laws simulations.
At NSTA (in beautiful San Antonio, Texas), this past week, I shared activities designed to explore three levels of representation AND provide formative assessment techniques to reveal student misconceptions. All of the activities shared have been featured in the Journal of Chemical Education or have been linked to research articles in JCE as supporting information.
This activity is used as a reinforcement activity following my use of JCE Classroom Activity #113: An Interlocking Building Block Activity in Writing Formulas of Ionic Compounds.
It could be used as a stand alone activity to support writing ionic formulas and names.
The March 2013 issue of the Journal of Chemical Education is now available online [http://pubs.acs.org/toc/jceda8/90/3]. This latest issue of JCE plus the content of all past issues, volumes 1 through 90, are available at http://pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc.
Have you seen the new Crayola Crystal Effects Window Markers? You can draw on windows with these markers. Better yet, you can use these markers to teach students some chemistry! After drawing on a window with these markers and waiting a little while, the marker ink appears to crystalize! Check out the video below to see how they work.
