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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The Open UniversityYASS - the Young Applicants in Schools Scheme - is a fabulous series of Open University courses designed to give age 16+ students an early taste of university, and bridge the gap between school and higher education.


The Royal Society of Chemistry and Wolfson (the foundation supporting our excellent new Gridlocks resource) have helped fund Living without oil: chemistry for a sustainable future. Living without oil is one of a series of flexible, 10-credit YASS courses introducing key topics in science.

The course assumes no prior knowledge in the subject area or the wider sciences, but students must have good written English and baseline maths skills. If the UK is ever to become a leader in biofuels or plant-derived plastics, or become the 'Saudi Arabia of wind and wave power', we need more young people tackling the challenges of a post-oil world.

There are two slots for Living without oil, the first starting 18th Feb, and the second on the 12th May. If you, or anyone you know, wants to get an early head-start on this fascinating, and vitally important, subject, register via the YASS course page.

To get those budding post-oil scientists and policymakers started, here's a little inspiration.

Posted by Duncan McMillan on Feb 2, 2012 2:55 PM GMT
Augmented reality and chemistry. A perfect match, you might say, given the difficulty many have visualising chemical structures and mechanisms.

Augmented reality, if you're not yet au fait, is making computer graphics or information appear in real-time over live video. It has hitherto generally been used for some mobile phone information tools, such as Layar, or as a toy. Kids can bring their plastic Avatar toys to life with a webcam and a a piece of card printed with a special two-dimensional bar code.

Late last year a colleague pointed me towards this post by Dr Teeth about augmented reality chemistry education tools, and I've been meaning to blog about it since. It takes these playful applications of augmented reality into genuinely practical areas for education.

Augmented Reality - Chemistry Review from Sponholtz Productions on Vimeo.

I see lots of potential for this sort of thing, but if anyone knows of other chemistry augmented reality tools out there, speak up. I don't doubt that there's a lot more out there.

Spoonholtz Productions (the people behind this rather fancy tool) produce molecule visualisation cards free to download and use. If anyone has success using these in class with real students, let us know.
Posted by Duncan McMillan on Feb 1, 2012 5:00 PM GMT
What with the recent successful launch of our Visual Elements Periodic Table I thought I'd share another excellent periodic table resource, via the BBC's Look Around You site.



The Look Around You periodic  table, produced in fetching shades of purple and puce, highlights some hitherto less-well-known elements, such as: Toronto (To), Jazz (Jz), Goo (G), and Christmas (Xm).

Why not check out the rest of the Look Around You resources, including some excellent, if a little dated, schools science videos, such as this, on the wonders of sulphur (sic.)?

Posted by Duncan McMillan on Jan 31, 2012 12:12 PM GMT
Learn Chemistry is out there. It's roaming the internet, free and wild. But now begins the interesting part - where we hone and revise and tweak our one-stop-shop for chemistry education.

With that in mind, I'm pleased to report on two new developments.

First, we are adding loads of resources. At BETT and ASE we said we would continue to add chemistry education handouts, worksheets, videos, podcasts, interactive resources, and more. We plan to have uploaded close to double the launch list of (non-substance) resources by the spring. 

Second, we're responding to feedback and testing. We're improving the way search results are displayed; when our new algorithm goes live (very soon) search results will be ordered irrespective of resource type, allowing the most relevant and highest-quality resources to appear first.

There'll be more improvements to come, and we hope you'll continue to tell us how you want the RSC's Learn Chemistry to look, feel, and work.

In the meantime, here's a little reminder of why we teach, or learn, chemistry, courtesy of Abstruse Goose, and Marie Curie. (http://abstrusegoose.com/430)
Posted by Duncan McMillan on Jan 25, 2012 10:43 PM GMT

Learn Chemistry has launched!c9357b435754ee4bc16fd2eefbd7769b-huge-ase-team.jpg

No sooner has the new year begun than we've been as busy as proverbial nectar-drinking social insects.

Learn Chemistry, our new RSC Education resource website, went live on Wednesday 4th January, to coincide with our appearance at the Association for Science Education conference and show in Liverpool.

[Some of the RSC Education team, in front of the spectacular Visual Elements cake. From L-R: Duncan, Lorna (Doyenne of Learn Chemistry), Kat, Nicole, Rio, Ellen, and Amanda.]


Read on to find out about RSC Education and our International Map of Delegates! at BETT 2012...

more...
Posted by Duncan McMillan on Jan 20, 2012 5:22 PM GMT
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