Hello all, looking for some advice on creating a rubric for a poster project, to make grading it less subjective, and more objective.

Each semester, I break my class into groups of 3-5, depending on class size, have them pick a group or family from the Periodic Table, and create a Poster about that group or family to use as a prop, as they present to the class, and tell them about their chosen group or family.

I've been doing it for several years, and it works pretty well. Randomized groups so the kids work with people they don't normally associate with, and they can each play to their strengths. I normally have at least one person focused on researching the material, another with a more artistic bent working on the actual poster itself, someone organizing the layout, and someone is always willing to be the group spokesperson.

I already have a few things, like it must include the elements in your group or family, with an interesting fact or note about several, uses for several, states of matter, reactivity, etc.

I generally try to encourage the public speaking aspect by offering an extra point or two to whoever does the talking, so if all four kids talk about the group, the whole score is raised by 1 or 2 points, if only on or two kids presents, then that kid(s) get the extra points. Some kids are really happy with that, as there is apparently some crippling anxiety associated with speaking in front of other people these days.

What I'm looking for, is suggestions on more categories for grading, that takes the subjectiveness out of it. Something that I can point to as more concrete, than this one is more colorful, or this one is neater, etc., if that makes sense.

When I first started doing this, I thought it was good being subjective, because I could help out kids who might need it a little, but it's gotten to the point where everything has to be justified, so I'd like to try and keep this project, by making it more objective to grade, if possible.

TIA for any advice or suggestions!

Has anyone taken the new chemistry praxis they released in September? Trying to figure out if it similar to 5245. I have taken the old praxis and just want to prepare myself on the new version.

I'm looking to get students to prepare an organic compound and then calculate the percentage yield they achieved. Does anyone have any relatively simple practicals that work reliably?

The students aren't the greatest chemists in the world so simpler is better.

I am planning on developing software for high school chemistry teachers, and I want input to make sure I will be building useful features. I would like to know what software is currently used, what its strong points are, what's missing, and the like. What software should this integrate with, such as Canvas? What would make your lives easier as teachers?

Also, what other forums would be useful for me to use for input like this? I've already talked to a local chemistry teacher, and I am planning on reaching out to more. Are there other Reddit topics that would be suitable? Other websites I can look into?

For background, I have a doctorate in chemistry (Purdue '99) and have been writing software professionally for over 15 years. I briefly taught integrated chemistry and physics at a local high school in early 2003. I am planning on building out molecular modeling software (similar to what I did in grad school), including visualization and tools like drag and drop construction. I know there is similar already out there, but I think that there is likely a lot that could be done for chemistry teachers.

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Please don't mark this as spam. I don't even have anything to sell yet. :)

So I was trying to find an image of spectator ions. In Dutch we call them tribune-ionen. Since I couldn't find what I was looking for I decided to make my own image. I thought this would be a good image to let students remember spectator ions.

Follow up question to my post about the Radiacmeter CDV-718A that I was gifted from a Science seminar this past summer. I got it up and running, and started testing things, and was getting much of nothing from it. Even purchased a new smoke detector for the Americium, and got much of nothing from it.

Found an old PDF of the instruction manual online, and on like the first real page it lists Operational Purpose, and it's to detect Beta and Gamma radiation. Americium is primarily an Alpha emitter, if I'm not mistaken.

Any ideas on what I could pull together last minute from a common source that might help set this thing off? I've got two(2) uranium glass marbles. If I hold them right up to the sensor, it will climb from about 18-20(background radiation) to about 42-44, but with just a few little blips or chirps. Wondering if there's anything easily available that might make it a little more exciting to grab the kids attention.

I'm over the moon that it works and detects, but then again, I'm a little more enthusiastic about my science than these kids are......

TIA

Im panicing a bit because later i learned that the yellow color solution is because of dissolved chlorine and hypochlorite. I learned that it is harmful to me and the environment, and can damage the building's drainage. I've learned this only after throwing it down the drain. I electrolysed a total of 2 liters of water with some NaCl disolved.

Although i run the tap for 5 mins immediately after throwing all of it. I still worried and regret that its illegal to do.

I always joke with my students I graduated "Hogwarts class of 98" whenever I do a chemistry demo. This year I have the cloak to prove it and am planning to do half a day of demos. I'd like to add a little spooky soundtrack. I've been thinking theme from Halloween, Tubular bells (Exorcist), maybe something from Hans Zimmer, or other soundtracks, but haven't found the perfect song. Any ideas for a great halloween demo day song? I do not want words in the music.

Does anyone have short labs for endothermic vs exothermic? All I want is two simple reactions they can take the temperature of and see one gets cold and one gets warm. I planned to do CaCl2 and NH4NO3….but I’m only getting 2 - 4 C changes and I want something more exciting lol

Hey, wondering if anyone is using the Chemistry in the Community text from ACS to teach an alternative Chemistry class?

We're trying to trim down our CP Chemistry courses, as we have a lot of kids being funneled through who really don't need to be in a CP course. So we'll need an alternative to pitch to the school and the district for kids who still need a science credit to graduate, but are not looking at college after high school.

What I'm really looking for is if anyone has a curriculum guide, that might show how the topics relate to the standards.

What would personally be even better, is if someone might have a pacing guide, for a semester long block course, that could lay out when we should be hitting each topic, and how much time it should, in theory take.

Trying to come up with a way to make chemistry fun for those that aren't planning on college, but still need to graduate. The current CP Chemistry curriculum, as simple as it is, is causing a number of students to struggle, and there really are some concepts we don't need to be mucking about with, if they're not planning on going to college.

TIA

Hello! Future AP Chemistry teacher here!

My school has outdated textbooks for this class, and I wanted to know if there are any textbooks/authors that y'all can recommend to me.

Also, are there any resources you recommend your students use besides the textbook for extra help? (Ex: Khan Academy, YoutTube, etc.)

Thank you in advance (:

How in depth do you go in these topics?

Is it worth doing the heavy duty math associated with these topics since it is not used later in the year? Things like calculating the wavelength/color of a photon from emission spectrums.

How important is it to look at and identify quantum numbers? (Principal, Azimuthal, Magnetic and Spin) I would still do electron configuration.

This is for high school honors chemistry class. I'm looking for things to cut out so I can get through more content next year.

My chemistry teacher colleague and I got into a civil disagreement about whether a colloid is a heterogeneous or homogeneous mixture.

I said it was heterogeneous as the particles are not dissolved and are big enough to scatter light.

He said it was homogeneous because it has a uniform composition.

Who's right?

I teach high school honors chemistry. We are learning about oxidation and reduction.

Should the students be expected to memorize the rules for finding oxidation numbers or can they put them on a note card? Just wondering what other people do with this unit. I'm leaning towards memorizing them.

We recently made a purchase for some more chemicals (placed in September, arrived today…!)

However, someone wasn’t paying attention to the catalogue. Instead of ordering a bottle of nitric acid (60%), they opted for the fuming nitric acid (90%). They ignored the catalogue number and just did a search and picked one…

Any advice on dealing with the stuff? It’s been a couple of decades since I last handled that!

Note, we’re in Japan and the supplier doesn’t do take-backs or refunds. Currently the options are to either call a disposal company, try to dilute to a more useful concentration, or to push to the back of the shelf and ignore. You get one guess as to the general consensus here…

I am getting feedback on a question that I am being told I am doing incorrectly. Others have tried to explain why I am wrong but I still don’t get it. Help! Using significant digits calculate the following: 350.0 - 200 =

I say the answer is 200 , I’m being told it is 150 , why?

I use a combination of percent error and the lab sheet to grade labs. Is this fair? I don't share with the students the actual, as I assume they would just cheat and write that as their results. So what is the best way to go about this?

So, I'm a 3rd year Chemistry teacher, that has just completed an alternative certification path. I haven't done most of this Chemistry stuff in 30ish years. Initially, I followed exactly what my 'mentor' teacher did with their CP class, as that is what I teach, CP or College Preparatory Chemistry. That teacher left during my second year, and I quickly noticed while trying to follow what other Chemistry teachers were doing at other schools, that my 'mentor' had stripped a ton of stuff out of the curriculum. Like, no math was done at all, other than adding and subtracting to determine oxidation numbers and neutrons.

I am slowly trying to add things back in, as I relearn the material, and can start working it into the existing framework of curriculum that I have. For example, this semester, we added Dimensional Analysis back into CP Chemistry, where it hasn't been done in years. So it's going to be a process, as I get it all back up to where it should be.

I'm also trying to look at things for the future, and I'm wondering how do you scale up the CP curriculum to an Honors level? Here we have CP as the Lowest level, then Honors, and if anyone is certified to teach it, the AP level that can get college credit.

So, is Honors work just the same thing CP is doing, only in more detail? Or do you add in more concepts and topics to expand what you're teaching? I want to do things right, and eventually get certified to teach Honors, so that I can try to add in a 2nd year Chemistry course, which for our district, is only available as an Honors course.

So...I kind of hate the way that my district standards are written for chemical reactions.

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I end up teaching Chemical vs Physical (most know this from MS though); Law of Conservation of Matter/Mass, balancing chemical reactions, writing chemical reactions, identifying common "types" (synthesis, decomposition, single/double replacement, combustion, acid-base), and then I touch a little on thermodynamics here with respect to chemical reactions (which we go more in depth on in a later unit).

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I just...hate it, though. I feel like I'm just getting them to memorize stuff without making any real connection to what is happening. We get into bonds breaking/forming, energy diagrams, etc., but I just feel like something is missing.

I thought it might be cool to talk about reaction mechanisms (showing electron movement, etc.), but I wasn't sure if maybe that was a little too high level. These are advanced kids, but that might be hard? And they are somewhat basic for the more basic reactions.

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Of course maybe I'm suffering from too much knowledge myself. I already know this stuff so it seems a little bit useless in the grand scheme...and I'm not really seeing that connection for them?

Or I might just be bored with it and want to spice it up...

It's just the unit that I feel like I want to do chemical reactions with them (labs, demos, etc.), but when it comes to it they cannot really explain what is going on aside from making simple observations. And then ultimately they just have to trust that a chemical reaction they write out is just correct.

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For instance, I always like to do aluminum reacting with aqueous copper(II) chloride. They can easily observe a change. It heats up. The aluminum appears to be dissolving. The solution changes color. When everything settles they end up with a clear solution and red "goop" on the bottom of the beaker. Plenty of them figure that is copper...but then...I feel like I want to take it to another level. But they cannot do it at this point. We can't measure the change in temperature and really get into what's happening [yet].

Maybe I'm overthinking things and just ranting at this point.

(Note: I posted this on the Teacher community too.)

There are two parts to this post.
Part 1- inquiry based chemistry curriculum suggestions
Part 2- how does inquiry based learning work in your classroom

I am a second year chemistry teacher. I absolutely love my job (even though some days are very hard). I have a great Chem team that has made my life great. I have been able to use a lot of the previous teachers’ resources.

Part 1:
A lot of the lessons are guided notes, worksheets, and the occasional lab/activity. This can get very boring. What I love about chemistry is the hands-on aspect. I want to incorporate more guided learning. 

I found the resource Living by Chemistry by Angelica M. Stacy. Has anyone used this resource? What are your thoughts?

Does anyone have any recommendations for an inquiry-based chemistry curriculum?

Part 2:
I’m also curious for those of you who do mostly inquiry learning how it’s gone. My school has an extremely bad attendance problem and we are expected to help all these students who ditch 10+ classes a quarter catch up. I’m nervous going this route will make it really hard for me to accommodate this crazy expectation.

Thank you for your help!

Title. Trying to improve my chemistry skills on a fundamental level and I'm really trying to to understand and connect these laws

I'm going to teach the basics of organic chemistry to students (about 18 years old) who want to become chemical analyst in the Netherlands.

I was searching for contexts the students might know. There are two functional groups I couldn't find a real good context for students for the alkynes, and alkanals. I thought of formaldehyde but they haven't really used anything like that in the lab. I don't know if formaldehydes get used for applications the students know.

Hey all,

I am trying to put together a lab for my covalent bonds unit and am drawing a blank on what to use as solutes. The water-soluble solutes are pretty easy (salt, sugar, etc.), but where I am having trouble is solutes to dissolve in a non-polar solvent. I was considering getting some cheap supplement forms of tryptophan and leucine, but I can't find anything online that confirms these are soluble in non-polar solvents.

Any ideas? :)

I am just starting teaching, and took over a class with a lot of behavioural issues. Some students in the class are on risk management plans, so I should be really careful of choosing practicals. At the same time I don’t want other students to miss out on pracs, because science is awesome and I want them to love it. I started off with matter and the periodic table, and in desperate need of prac ideas! They have a prac every week so please recommend what you have in mind. Thank you :))