Today marks the end of the free period of access to our online course Quantitative chemistry. We have been pleased to see lots of you making use of the course already and we’ve received some great feedback.
To coincide with the end of the free period we are launching a new online area, the ‘My record’ page, where you can see what courses you have subscribed to and track your progress. We have also introduced a certificate to be signed by your head of department, or performance manager, when you have completed all of the topics within a course. As always, we welcome your feedback on these new features.
The full price of the course is £50 for one user subscription for one year’s access. Discounts are available for teachers at a Learn Chemistry Partnership school and for our members.
Any teacher at a Learn Chemistry Partnership school will be eligible for 25% discount on our online courses. If your school is already registered, we will communicate the discount codes in the next newsletter and by email. Learn Chemistry Partnership is free to register for, and has many benefits, so if your school has not registered then visit our ‘Supporting organisations’ page to sign up now.
If you are a member of The Royal Society of Chemistry then you will be eligible for 50% discount on the courses and can apply this to your subscription in our online payment system. If you are the main contact for your teaching institution for the Learn Chemistry Partnership you can claim complimentary membership.

The aspirin screen experiment is a freely available digital resource. The interactive tool enables students to undertake an aspirin synthesis, perform recrystallisations, thin layer chromatography and modify experimental conditions to determine the effect on yield.




This interactive resource introduces students to the aspirin synthesis and coaches them through the steps needed to complete a class practical.
http://www.rsc.org/learn-chemistry/resource/res00001644/aspirin-screen-experiment
 
Many students often report that some practical classes can feel rushed with objective unclear. Teachers often report that if they remind students of practical work completed last week many will not remember the details.  Feedback on our screen experiments to date suggests it does increases student’s familiarity with the procedure and therefore save precious class time.
 
The synthesis of aspirin is an example of an organic chemistry experiment which is a key requirement for key stage 5 (A-Level / BTEC) across all specifications. We have targeted this experiment as the first of a new kind of educational resource to support real life practical work.
 
The resource is divided into four levels, each of which are estimated to take a student approximately 30 minutes to complete either as homework or as an in-class activity.

  

Levels 1 and 2 are ideal pre-lab activities which introduce the experiment and can be repeated by the student anytime. This unique learning opportunity is designed to make it easier for the student to take part in the classroom practical.

Levels 3 and 4 are designed as ideal post-lab activities which allow students to investigate the effects of varying the conditions and reagents in order to optimise the reaction. It is based on real experimental data and is an excellent inquiry tool for students to make guided discoveries.

Built using HTML5 the resource requires no plug-ins or installations. You will need to ensure you are using Chrome, Firefox or Internet Explorer 10 browsers. The product also works on touch screen devices like Android tablets using a chrome browser and iPads.

Students will need to register and log in to the resource. This means that students can save their progress, score points and collect information on their own lab book as well as earn personal badges. These features are expected to increase the likelihood of the student wanting to repeat the activities to improve their skills.

The login user numbers can be shared with teachers so that the teacher can observe completed homework and review the lab books to identify areas requiring more explanation in class. At the end of each level there is a review section for students to reflect on their progress and draw some conclusions. We expect these reviews will be shown to teachers and discussed in more depth in class.

We are currently working on a new screen experiment on the topic of titrations to be released later in 2015. We will also be opening the new screen experiment section of the experimentation hub on Learn Chemistry shortly to reflect this and other available resource from around the web.

Supporting chemistry education is a key aim for the Royal Society of Chemistry. To make sure this aim covers all ages, we are excited by the work we are now doing to extend that support towards primary (5-11) education. 

Chemistry is not often introduced as a seperate discipline at this age range so we have taken the concious decision to support science as a wider subject. We are aiming to work with other organisations, teachers and schools in delivering new resources, materials and support tools that will result in improved science teaching and learning at the primary age range. 

This comes based off recent research which indicates children have developed aspirations towards science, and wider STEM subjects, by the age of 10 and earlier intervention and support is needed to ensure more children aspire to enter scientific careers paths after formal education ends. 

This focus on primary science is an exciting new direction for the work we do in education and will open up new audiences, along with new challenges, to promoting chemistry. We are already directly supporting groups of schools to secure a Primary Science Quality Mark (PSQM) and we are investing into new resources, for primary school teachers, to support how science is taught. 

This new direction is stil at an early stage and more news about our primary science work will be posted in the future.