Chemistry Experiments
The pH Factor within the Miami Museum adheres to a 7 "E" model of teaching excite, explore, examine, explain, expand, extend, and exchange...
Links
http://education.ncsa.uiuc.edu/products/chemviz/index.htmlThe pH Factor within the Miami Museum adheres to a 7 "E" model of teaching: excite, explore, examine, explain, expand, extend, and exchange. This model can be extended to other topics, of course, and it exploits the Web's particular capabilities.
Similarly, the Boiling Point lesson at Stevens Tech calls for students around the world to record the boiling point of water. Since water does boil at remarkably different temperatures, depending upon the elevation, students collect authentic data. While the outcomes of this experiment hold no mystery, it illustrates the true power of the Web--gathering, compiling and analyzing data at points to which students would have no other access. An international version is also available.
An ingenious professor at the University of Wisconsin has created the Science is Fun site at which a different topic is explored in-depth each week during the school year. It is well-illustrated. For example, most of us know that changes in pigmentation result in the beautiful fall color displays. Most of us do not know the actual details of the chemical reactions. This site would be especially apt for your students who are persistent in their questions to get to the bottom of things.
Forensics, a site created by three H.S. students and part of a ThinkQuest project, will intrigue your wondering students or it could complement some of the units in major science series, like FOSS.
Check out the Science Teachers' Resource Center at Lapeer School for directions about some innovative as well as traditional experiments. They will welcome your successful experiments here. The Catalyst is an online journal for high school chemistry teachers.
ChemViz, a computational approach to chemistry, relies upon a super-computer. Special software has been created and the project activities match most secondary chemistry curricula. Students can explore math models of interactive atoms and molecules. Required equipment can include a PC with Internet access (to access the supercomputer installation), NCSA special software, Collage (a conferencing tool), a color printer and graphing program like Excel.
Shodor showcases forensic science, certainly a popular draw on television today.
Manipulating molecules and generating formulae are key skills for modern chemistry. Look at Jeff Finnan's examples.
For tips implementing inquiry-based lessons in chemistry look at NSTA resources.
Annotation
The Boiling Point experiment calls for the best use of the Web. Other projects have attempted similar tasks; for instance, one experiment asks students around the world to measure carbon dioxide in the air. Since most worldwide connected schools are in urban areas, it turns out that the amount of carbon dioxide does not vary much. Major cities, however, are located at different elevations so The Boiling Point experiment works.
What other chemistry experiments would provide a similar learning experience?
