Overwhelmed by the available chemistry resources? Looking for new chemistry teaching ideas? Elementary Articles is the place for chemistry, education, and everything else.

Elementary Articles is the official blog for the RSC's Learn Chemistry – your home for chemistry education resources and activities.

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With trainee chemistry teacher numbers rising, and university chemistry departments re-opening, "what makes an effective science [and, presumably, chemistry] teacher?" is a question worth trying to answer. 

On 19th March the SCORE annual conference will attempt to do exactly that
, by exploring "...the characteristics of an effective teacher in the sciences...". more...
Posted by Duncan McMillan on Dec 23, 2011 12:04 PM GMT
Randall Munroe, the genius behind the wonderful 'romance, sarcasm, math, and language' webcomic xkcd, never fails to come up with something clever, fresh, and generally hilarious.

His last, 'Mnemonics', is a whimsical re-imagining of the acrostics and acronyms invented to help students remember ordered lists (remember SOH-CAH-TOA?, ROYGBIV?).

I wanted to share his new mnemonic for the SI prefixes, which made me laugh. Click the image for the whole cartoon (which isn't entirely appropriate for children):

297008b02963016542f0c1cdb551fdbd-original-mnemonics-clip.png


If you've never heard of xkcd, and you have work to do, then click the 'random' cartoon button at your peril.
Don't say I didn't warn you.
Posted by Duncan McMillan on Dec 20, 2011 2:21 PM GMT
I've belatedly noticed data reported in the last Education in Chemistry, from 5th December - that the government has exceeded its chemistry teacher recruitment targets.

The number training to teach chemistry has risen 35% on the 2010 figure. This is great news. Even better, the calibre of primary and secondary teacher trainees has improved - more now have upper second or better degrees.

Have a look for yourself at the trainee census data on the TDA website.

[update June 2014 - TDA census data link now points to government web archive location]
Posted by Duncan McMillan on Dec 20, 2011 11:31 AM GMT

Current and former RSC Teacher Fellows will be showing off some classic chemistry demonstrations at the Association for Science Education Conference and show on the 7th January 2012 (11.30 -12.30,  Gossage Lecture Theatre).

This is an interactive presentation, featuring demonstrations that teachers can use in their own classrooms. Be prepared to participate!

UPDATE (16/01/12): Peter Hoare, one of the illustrious demonstrators at ASE, has supplied the associated powerpoint presentation, now attached. Enjoy!

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Posted by Duncan McMillan on Dec 15, 2011 11:06 AM GMT
cb82a44c89ad98fc970ba085a5f725d9-original-2ase-2012-a4flyer-1.jpgThe Royal Society of Chemistry Education team will be making a splash at January's Association for Science Education (ASE) conference and exhibition, in Liverpool.

Come and see RSC teacher fellows and members of RSC's Education team at ASE 2012. We'll be hosting practical workshops, presentations, and a demonstration lecture, and we'll be launching our new LearnChemistry site, all at ASE.

To whet your appetite, here's a list of all RSC-hosted events at ASE 2012. For more information, email education@rsc.org. Throughout the ASE event we'll be at stand B28. I'll update this post with links to event and conference site maps in due course.

UPDATE (06/12/11): I've added a small campus map, below. The Red buildings denote the registration area and exhibition hall. The orange oval describes the Chemistry building and the purple oval describes the Chadwick Tower, both locations for our events outside the exhibition hall. I've also attached a high-res campus map PDF.

UPDATE (16/12/11): We earlier neglected to include the date and time of Saturday's big chemistry demonstration, now added.



RSC Events at the ASE Annual Conference 2012
 
Thursday 5 January
Practical workshop – getting to grips with quantitative chemistryebb80f72349b9d3d945ecf47d57e4acd-original-handbook-cover-and-campus-map-tbu-05-12-11---sml2.jpg

Dr David Everett, RSC Consultant
Dr Kay Stephenson, RSC Consultant
09.30 - 11.30  Chemistry, Schools lab 2
 
Embedding RSC Chemistry careers materials in science lessons
Dr Robert Bowles, Schools and Colleges Specialist, RSC
11.30 - 12.30  Chadwick, CTC2

Practical workshop - Redox and Electrode Potentials
Dr David Everett, RSC Consultant
Dr Kay Stephenson, RSC Consultant
14.00 - 16.00  Chemistry, Schools lab 2
 
E-Learning
Dr Lorna Thomson, Programme Manager Education Resources, RSC
16.00 - 17.00  Chadwick, CTC2
 
Friday 6 January
Practical workshop – getting to grips with quantitative chemistry
Dr David Everett, RSC Consultant
Dr Kay Stephenson, RSC Consultant
09.30 - 11.30  Chemistry, Schools lab 2
 
E-Learning
Dr Lorna Thomson, Programme Manager Education Resources, RSC
11.30 - 12.30  Chadwick, CTC2
 
Practical workshop - Redox and Electrode Potentials
Dr David Everett, RSC Consultant
Dr Kay Stephenson, RSC Consultant
14.00 - 16.00  Chemistry, Schools lab 2
 
Embedding RSC Chemistry careers materials in science lessons
Dr Robert Bowles, Schools and Colleges Specialist, RSC
16.00 - 17.00  Chadwick, CTC2
 
LearnChemistry Reception
RSC stand
16.30-18.00      
 
Saturday 7 January
Demonstration lecture:
POPular colourful demos that will leave you bursting with ideas!

Dr Catherine Smith, RSC Teacher Fellow, University of Leicester
Mr Declan Fleming, ex-RSC Teacher Fellow, University of Bath
Mrs Anne Willis ex-RSC Teacher Fellow, Northumbria University
Dr Peter Hoare ex-RSC Teacher Fellow, Newcastle University

11.30 -12.30  Gossage Lecture Theatre

Saturday 7 January – Open conference
Education in Chemistry magazine – find out what we can do for you
Karen J. Ogilvie, Editor, Education in Chemistry, RSC
12.50 – 13.05  Open conference session, Exhibition Marquee
Posted by Duncan McMillan on Dec 5, 2011 4:47 PM GMT
The last Education in Chemistry features a lovely, and striking, demonstration of the reaction of copper with Nitric Acid - December's Video of the Month on the Talk Chemistry home page.

As Declan Fleming, author and host of the accompanying video, explains:

The dramatic reaction between copper and nitric acid ought to be seen by all post-16 students. It provides an excellent opportunity to explain observations using the electrochemical series and makes the point that there's more to consider about an acid than its dissociated protons. As well as showing how dramatically copper reacts with nitric acid, this adapted demonstration also uses the high solubility of nitrogen dioxide to initiate a pleasing fountain.

Check out the Education in Chemistry article for full details of the procedure and accompanying safety notes, or watch the video below:



UPDATE (6/12/11): Register for E-Alerts from Education in Chemistry to be the first to know when new exhibition chemistry and feature articles become available to read online. Don't forget to click the Education in Chemistry checkbox.

Posted by Duncan McMillan on Dec 5, 2011 11:38 AM GMT
Vicky Wong’s “Inspirational Chemistry – Resources for Modern Curricula” (IC) was produced in the run up to the 2006 curriculum changes with a view to getting more modern chemistry contexts being introduced into lessons.

Thumbing through the book, it feels as if you’re getting the opportunity to sit down with an experienced teacher who has had time to research and prepare some quality demonstrations, practicals (both variations on classics and completely novel ideas), starters, guided question sheets, modelling exercises and other activities. You then get to nick the lot!

BK9780854043996_m.jpg

More after the jump ... more...
Posted by Declan Fleming on Oct 27, 2011 1:17 AM BST

197339642e3a4910e7ba1cc611d84a84-original-bk9780854042883_m.jpg

Tom Joliff's Chemistry for the Gifted and Talented contains a range of activities to stretch the more able students in your class. These range from su doku style activities (which I'm personally less fond of) through to much more interesting concept and model challenging activities one of which I've attached after the jump....

 

more...
Posted by Declan Fleming on Jul 17, 2011 9:09 PM BST
So today I found the most amazingly surreal paper from the 50s which discussed chemistry accidents that had happened in the last few years from across the US, UK, NZ and a number of other countries. It was a weird look back in time to attitudes around safety and access to chemicals and the (often morbid) cartoon graphics were incredibly surreal given the subject matter.

More after the jump ... more...
Posted by Declan Fleming on Jul 7, 2011 9:25 AM BST
One of my all time favourite resources from the RSC is Keith Taber’s Chemical Misconceptions: Prevention, Diagnosis and Cure. It’s the one RSC resource I think I use more than any other. As it’s a resource I’m going to have to mention time and again here, I better start early so I don’t repeat myself too often.
 
CMDPC comes in two volumes. In the first, Keith explores the pedagogical minefield of chemistry, its origins and implications as well as some strategies for navigating it. The second is a little easier to pick up and run with because it has lots of resources ready to go whose value is immediately obvious.
more...
Posted by Declan Fleming on Jun 15, 2011 2:23 PM BST
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