Chem 13 News Magazine Archives - all articles listed

Chem 13 News magazine covers over the years

From 1968 to 2022 - more than 50 years! - the Department of Chemistry at the University of Waterloo published an informal magazine for teachers of introductory chemistry courses at the high school and year one college levels. 

Our archives present the top 100 most accessed articles since 2012.

Browse by category

Activities

Announcements

  • ​Award winner
  • Chemical education
  • Conference highlights

News and updates in Chemistry

Humour

  • Cartoons, quotes, poems and fun

Classics

  • 1968-present

From readers

  • Covers
  • Letters to the editor
  • Showcasing student work

Pedagogy, opinion and advice

  • Editorials
  • First-year trenches
  • Viewpoint and advice

Recommended

  • Book, and DVDs
  • Websites and blogs

Student challenges

Series

Special issues

Other

Browse by lesson

  • Atomic theory and bonding

  • Electrochemistry

  • Energy changes and rates of reaction

  • Active classroom 
    (First day, review, games)

  • Gases

  • Matter
    (Chemical and physical properties)

  • Organic

  • Periodic table and trends

  • Quantities
    (Mole, stoichiometry, significant digits)

  • Reactions

  • Safety

  • Systems 
    (equilibrium, acids/bases...)

CASE: Centre for Advanced Scientific Education

Atomic theory and bonding

  • Intermolecular forces and phases of matter
  • Know the limit and teach within series
  • Introducing polarity: claim, evidence, reasoning (CER) 
  • Colour flame 
  • Question and answers from the past
  • Easter solutions
  • Pizza box spectroscope: Construction (part 1)
  • Pizza box spectroscope: Calibration (part 2)
  • Periodic Table of emission spectra 
  • Net-ionic equations in West Side Story 
  • Sorting the atomic model
  • Why educational research matters to you: Parachutes, particles, bonding and “good enough” models
  • VSEPR, the easy way
  • ​Polarity demos
  • Identifying polar molecules kinesthetically
  • Why atoms, anyway? Teaching the origins of the atomic theory
  • Chemical compound: Why some are non-existent 
  • Dogs teach chemistry 

Electrochemistry

Energy changes/rates of reaction

  • Thought lab: Catalysts and hydrogen peroxide 
  • The chemistry of Alka-Seltzer
  • Racquetball reactions - Concrete examples of abstract concepts
  • 2016 Canadian Chemistry Contest: Worst discriminator
  • Goldilocks and thermodynamics cartoon
  • Question and answers from the past
  • AP Thermodynamics and Rates of Reaction test: Valentine edition
  • Best discriminator from 2015 CCC -- concept of Gibbs Free Question 
  • Boiling water demo: Much more than meets the eye
  • The fermentation of sugars using yeast: A discovery experiment
  • Colourful milk demo
  • Sharing chemistry with the community: A colorful catalyst
  • A Chemistry Olympiad question in Canadian context
  • Thought lab: Surface area and rate of reaction
  • Tough questions from 2013 CHEM 13 NEWS exam: discussion on ionic radius and rates of reaction questions
  • 2016 Canadian Chemistry Contest: Worst discriminator
  • ​Calorimeter calculations with aqueous solutions - follow up from Worst Discriminator
  • Racquetball reactions – Concrete examples of abstract concepts

First day / review / games

  • Chemistry nomenclature puzzle
  • “Close enough” — said no chemist ever!
  • Scavenger hunt
  • Spoonful of sugar
  • A chemistry class to begin the year’s work (reprint from 1980)
  • Welcoming students to chemistry
  • Getting to know you!
  • Your own peril cartoon
  • Edible candle 
  • Let’s get started
  • Viscosity success
  • Get the ball rolling
  • Jumping onto a moving train
  • Chemistry of our lives puzzle
  • Redox card games
  • ​Reaction animation old style
  • Chem Mad Gab game
  • Play a game
  • Floating coins 
  • Demistry of candles and flames
  • Get the ball rolling

Gases

Matter (Chemical and physical properties)

Organic chemistry

  • Polymer fun
  • Name this compound for Easter 
  • What's in an organic compound name?
  • Comparing the SN1 and SN2 Reactions
  • Fentanyl
  • Iohexol — a CT scan contrast agent compound containing iodine
  • Chemicals in the news: Azodicarbonamide
  • What we can teach with hybrid orbitals
  • Chemistry: Its bond with the past
  • Xylenes — A cautionary tale
  • Nomenclature nonsense - fun organic molecule riddles 
  • Organic molecules of everyday life.12. Triclosan
  • Para-Chlorobenzotrifluoride (PCBTF) – the ‘super-solvent’
  • ​Organic molecules of everyday life. 11. Frankincense and myrrh
  • Skeletal formulae revisited
  • Pet peeves: Skeletal organic formula 
  • Organic molecules of everyday life: 10. Hexenal

Periodic table and trends

  • Assumptions: Part 2 — Fact versus theory: electronegativity
  • Stained glass spiral periodic table    
  • Periodic Table of shelliments
  • A National Chemistry Week outreach project Periodic Table of LEGO®
  • Glenforest's wall-sized periodic table!
  • Princeton Day School’s periodic table
  • ​Student-created ceramic periodic table
  • Periodic Table with CD cases
  • Ode to Mendeleev
  • Electron affinity, the oft-forgotten — yet essential – periodic property
  • Names for element 114 and 116
  • Element 119 - Turning a line 
  • New periods in the periodic table
  • Hunting for the elements 

Quantities: (Mole, stoichiometery, significant digits)

  • My take on significant digits 
  • Sig dig in undergrad labs (Part 1)
  • New freely-available interactive high school chemistry lessons
  • The toothpaste challenge 
  • Low stress chemistry with “hands-on” stoichiometry
  • Water from gasoline
  • Just take a breath
  • Percentage purity of calcium carbide — a quick lab
  • Icebergs and Avogadro's constant
  • Think about the chemistry, not the math   
  • 2016 Canadian Chemistry Contest: Best discriminators 
  • Stoichiometry of antacids
  • Messages from the mole
  • Refresh their stoichiometry
  • Sharing chemistry with the community: Limiting and excess reagents
  • Vive la science!
  • Creative mole conversions
  • ​Student activity: Calibration at Mauna Loa
  • “Who is the antiquirk?” A chemical analogy
  • Percent water in green crystalline compound: An inquiry lab
  • A mole of lightening
  • Concentration of urine in a pool
  • Professor Wildi’s Visualization of Units pages for unit conversions
  • Olympic medals in 2012
  • A chemistry teacher's pet peeve: Dummy triangles

Reactions

Safety

​Systems (acid/bases, solubility, equilibrium)

Browse by issue

December 2019

November 2019

October 2019

  • The October 2019 cover: The Mendeleev Mosaic
  • Unveiling an International Masterpiece: The Timeline of Elements interactive exhibit and Mendeleev Mosaic
  • Eventually...
  • 2019 Chem 13 News and Avogadro Exam Winners
  • Canadian crystal growing competition
  • Spectroscopy
  • A Guide to the Elements: October's book review
  • Student eye
  • Elementary word search puzzle

September 2019

May 2019

April 2019

March 2019

February 2019

December 2018 - January 2019

  • Make me an offer…
  • Growing a chemistree and a competition
  • CCC: 2019 exam and 2018 winners
  • Communicative and therapeutic benefits of stamping
  • Intriguing Morsels from the Science of Everyday Life
  • TORNADOES, RAINBOWS, AND CHEMISTRY
  • Moving out and far far away 
  • ChemEd Reg Friesen Lecturer
  • Reflectance spectroscopy of a sugar cookie baking
  • Famous scientists puzzle
  • Christmas carols 
  • Aladdin’s lamp
  • Introducing paper chromatography
  • The egg experiment
  • A simple electronegativity demonstration device
  • Using chemistry to clean a teapot
  • Remembering great chemistry teachers
  • 2019 International Year of the Periodic Table update

November 2018

  • We need to think like economists  
  • Keeping an eye on puddle chemistry
  • I want to be a doctor
  • Book review: The Radium Girls
  • Consider presenting at ChemEd!
  • Chemical anagrams
  • Celebrating the decade of the 80s
  • Famous visitors
  • Chemical stream puzzle
  • What’s this?
  • Invert without a mess
  • Moles on the shelf
  • The US penny revealed
  • PFOS: The newest Artic Pollutant
  • STAO/APSO Conference
  • Timeline of elements update
  • Mendeleev mosaic

October 2018

  • Polymer fun cover
  • Polymer fun - story 
  • The good fight
  • Once in a Blue Moon
  • One pearl of wisdom
  • In memory of Robert Le Roy
  • Chemistry nomenclature puzzle
  • What are you doing for Mole Day?
  • Intermolecular forces and phases of matter
  • Make Plans for ChemEd 2019!
  • Lab safety — a "find problem" puzzle 
  • Cupcakes as oxygen molecules
  • Sodium Award winner
  • Story of Claude Émile Jean-Baptiste Litre
  • Most memorable hoax: Original Claude Émile Jean-Baptiste Litre
  • Partial pencil pressure
  • Book review: Chemistry in Your Kitchen
  • Soy Sauce — An essential Inuit condiment
  • Stuffed moles and life-size Avogadro
  • Lionel High School Scholarships 
  • The (real) reason why chemists need mathematics
  • Solubility cartoon 
  • Molympics 2018

September 2018

  • Art and Chemistry: POPcasso (front cover)
  • The launch of Chem 13 News online publication 
  • Elemental percentages puzzle
  • My take on significant digits 
  • Sig dig in undergrad labs (Part 1)
  • New freely-available interactive high school chemistry lessons
  • The toothpaste challenge 
  • 50 years ago we started something special 
  • Celebrating 1968-78 decade
  • Ramah Bay: 7,000 years of Aboriginal culture — and chemistry
  • Nomenclature nonsense puzzle
  • 2018 Chem 13 News and Avogadro exam winners
  • Canadian Crystal Growing Competition
  • 2018 Canadian chemistry teacher of the year: Jailson Lima

May 2018

April 2018

March 2018

February 2018

December 2017 - January 2018

November 2017

October 2017

  • Cover:Spooky pumpkin
  • Letters to the editor
  • Lab safety & common sense — not mutually exclusive
  • In praise of two-litre soda bottles
  • ChemEd 2017 Irwin Talesnick Award: Jean Hein 
  • The making of a mole   
  • Thought lab: Lime-A-Way
  • The chemistry of Alka-Seltzer
  • Who knew?
  • Mole pattern 
  • Molympics: The events
  • Fascinating chemistry cartoon 

September 2017

  • Cover: Home-made match
  • 2017 Canadian chemistry teacher of the year: Michael P Jansen
  • Thank you… for the struggle 
  • Percentage purity of calcium carbide — a quick lab    
  • Just take a breath
  • Introducing polarity: claim, evidence, reasoning (CER) 
  • Cheating: The not-good, the bad and the ugly
  • Winning tiles to be added to Periodic Table Project  
  • A chemistry history puzzle
  • Edible candle 
  • Periodic Table of emission spectra
  • Your own peril cartoon  

May 2017

  • Cover: Cobalt complex ions: Le Châtelier's Principle
  • It doesn't matter how you feel…  
  • Valuable knowledge 
  • Think about the chemistry, not the math  
  • Icebergs and Avogadro's number 
  • Judging - Oganessian and our stakeholders
  • Runners up  
  • Why scary lab accidents happen
  • Photochromic dyes for plastic lenses (part 2) 
  • AP Chemistry survival 
  • Final four elemental tiles:Nihonium, Moscovium, Tennessine, Oganesson 
  • Safety cartoon   

April 2017

  • Cover: Evidence of a reaction
  • Memories of a chemistry teacher
  • Redox and murder (Video recommendation)
  • Famous scientists
  • Sleep isn't for the weak
  • Sorting the atomic model
  • Stained glass spiral periodic table
  • Early submissions to New Elements Contest 
  • Net-ionic equations in West Side Story 
  • Photochromic dyes for plastic lenses: Part 1
  • Borax advisory update Health Canada
  • Starch in place of borax
  • Avogadro Exam 1988:  Part 4
  • Name this compound for Easter

March 2017

  • Cover: iPhone and prism glasses
  • Letter to the editor
  • Celebrate our colleagues
  • Decoding the chemicals in our food puzzle (scroll down to find link in March 2017 contents)
  • What's in an organic compound name?
  • Sources of helium - Some uplifting news
  • 2016 Canadian Chemistry Contest: Worst discriminator
  • Get your messages
  • Periodic graphics of elements 
  • Early submissions to New Elements Contest   
  • Racquetball reactions - Concrete examples of abstract concepts
  • New Elements Contest
  • Avogadro Exam 1988:  Part 3

February 2017

  • Cover: Native copper with silver
  • Letter to the editor
  • Foreshadowing…  not just for English teachers
  • Cheeky "W" in September 2016
  • #clickbaitchem
  • Avogadro Exam 1988:  Part 2
  • Early submissions to New Elements Contest  
  • Stoichiometry of antacids
  • Valentine's su-chem-du
  • Our students don't read…
  • What on Earth are Tholins?
  • 2016 Canadian Chemistry Contest: Best discriminators 
  • Signature mugs: Seaborg group

December 2016 - January 2017

  • Cover: Littlest chemis-tree
  • Letter to the editor
  • Seasonal message  
  • Crossing the Rubicon
  • Hydronium ion: Yes or no?
  • Comparing the SN1 and SN2 Reactions
  • Scavenger hunt
  • Chemis-trees revisited
  • But sir, the computer ate my homework…and other mystical excuses
  • 1988 Avogadro Exam: Part 1 
  • VSEPR, the easy way
  • A buffered vs. a non-buffered solution 
  • Chemistry in our lives
  • Signature mugs: Across the pond - Continental Europe 
  • First entry to Periodic Table Project New Elements  
  • Deep thoughts 
  • Regulation of active ingredient content in tablets

November 2016

  • Cover: Colourful flames
  • Letter to the editor
  • Shoutout
  • Not quite sure…
  • Goldilocks
  • The Comback Kid
  • The logistics of running a practical exam (Part 2)
  • Let’s get started
  • Messages from the mole
  • #clickbait syllabus
  • Fentanyl
  • University of Waterloo highlights at 2016 STAO/APSO
  • The Tale of the Duelling Neurosurgeons
  • The Limiting factors of eraser effectiveness

October 2016

  • Cover:Need a light?
  • Time theft
  • Mole Day celebrations at Waterloo
  • Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Teacher replaces written final with a practical lab exam (Part 1)
  • Millimole Day is Thursday, October 20 this year
  • Mole Day in the Classroom
  • Get the ball rolling
  • Salty pictures
  • ID of an unknown carbonate
  • Signature Mugs: Across the pond
  • Gak attack!
  • Don’t fear your chemistry instructor
  • Spooky cookies in a periodic table

September 2016

  • Cover: Let the sparks fly
  • Letter to the editor
  • Curriculum night
  • Education research denialism
  • Quotes
  • Nihomium, moscovium, tennessine and organesson
  • Gadolinium in MRI contrast agents
  • Signature mugs: Texas connections
  • 2016 Canadian chemistry teacher of the year
  • Deadlines are not a suggestion
  • National Crystal Growing Competition
  • Viscosity success

May 2016

  • Cover: Up close and freezing
  • Letters to the editor
  • Whatcha gonna do when I’m gone?
  • Should Harriet Brooks be on a Canadian banknote?
  • Question and answers from the past
  • Sharing chemistry with the community: Battle of the blues
  • Spoonful of sugar
  • Book review:50 Ideas You Really Need to Know - Chemistry
  • Signature mugs: Tragedies of oxygen
  • Refresh their stoichiometry
  • Cartoon
  • Equilibrium concept through interactive analogies

April 2016

  • Cover: A crafty chemistry set 
  • Getting extra yardage: The Crushing Can
  • We’ll do it my way… the right way
  • AviOrnstein.com: a puzzle and a sample essay, Shared Idea
  • Science competition
  • Signature mugs: Firsts
  • Cold finger distillation
  • Chemistry in Pictures contest
  • Proper use (I mean chemical educational use) of Facebook!
  • Sharing chemistry with the community — Now you don’t (see it)! Now you do!
  • Question and answers from the past
  • Chemistry in “The Martian” and for a mission to Mars
  • Book review: Einstein Relatively Simple
  • Caution: wet floor

March 2016

  • Cover:Burning magnesium photo
  • Why I hate grading lab reports
  • Insoluble… I think not
  • Extra yardage out of the floating penny
  • Video review: The Poisoner's Handbook
  • Easter solutions
  • How much is a chemistry teacher worth?
  • Sharing chemistry with the community: The chemistry of color
  • Chemical rainbow
  • Iohexol — a CT scan contrast agent compound containing iodine
  • Requirement of laboratory safety training on teacher certification
  • Cartoon: Significant digits
  • Periodic Table of shelliments

February 2016

December 2015 - January 2016

November 2015

October 2015

September 2015

May 2015

  • Cover: Bubbles on fire
  • Celebrate!!!
  • When kids cheat...
  • Letters to the editor
  • ‘Whoosh Tube’ demonstration (alternative to the bottle)
  • Boiling water demo: Much more than meets the eye
  • Sharing chemistry with the community: Bubble-ology part 2
  • Ready for university chemistry? Have students use our online self-diagnosis tool
  • Book review: The Teenage Brain 
  • Some do's and don'ts of chemistry tests: Prepare, write and reflect
  • How to get started with educational research
  • Welcoming students to chemistry

April 2015

  • Cover: Beautiful Chemistry website 
  • Letters to the editor
  • Vive la science!
  • Flipping the chemistry classroom series: Part 5
  • Nanotechnology: Bringing it safely into the classroom
  • Bubble-ology part 1
  • Beyond the “lecture” theatre: First-year chemistry learning resources
  • The fermentation of sugars using yeast: A discovery experiment
  • Engaging story on Marguerite Perey

March 2015

February 2015

  • Cover: Scientists in love 
  • Letters to the editor
  • A chemical compound by any other name…
  • Book review: Denalism - How Irrational Thinking Harms the Planet and Threatens Our Lives 
  • Flipping the chemistry classroom series: part 3
  • Handouts worth keeping by Cation Designs
  • What colour is P4?
  • Electrochemistry on the move
  • Burning magnesium in a Bunsen flame and other flame experiments
  • Should we upgrade photosynthesis and grow supercrops?
  • Tough question from the 2014 CHEM 13 NEWS Exam
  • Using your Valentine’s Day chocolates to demonstrate density

December 2014 - January 2015

  • Cover: Collection of Chemis-tree 
  • Letter to the editor
  • Formal lab reports must die
  • Re: Why are these tough questions?
  • Reaction types energize learning
  • Flipping the chemistry classroom series: part 2
  • Finding equilibrium and deconstructing misconceptions with Nano Hexbugs(TM)
  • The last day before winter vacation
  • Foaming chemis-tree
  • Knitting for chemistry
  • Rustic “chemis-tree” wreath lab: Iron-copper single displacement reaction
  • Sharing chemistry with the community: The case of the missing bunny
  • Natural gas (methane) and propane as fuel gases
  • O Little Endpoint I Did Miss
  • Book review: The Joy of Chemistry 
  • Two weeks theory, followed by two weeks lab
  • Colourful milk demo

November 2014

October 2014

  • Cover:  A Mole Day greeting card
  • Strategy and tactics
  • An 1860 blood test for you to try
  • Sharing chemistry with the community: How to blow out a light bulb
  • CEMPAZUCHITL, a puzzle celebrating the Mexican Day of the Dead
  • ECCNvideos: Free online demonstrations for students and teachers
  • A National Chemistry Week outreach project Periodic Table of LEGO®
  • NO FeAr Science Club
  • Plan to have a sweet National Chemistry Week
  • Learning styles: fact and fiction
  • Chemicals in the news: Azodicarbonamide

September 2014

  • Cover: Science and beauty in a soap bubble 
  • Letters to the editor
  • We are (almost) all mentors
  • Stop, drop and roll
  • Translating research into classroom practice
  • The creative stimulus
  • Why is my tire flat?
  • Jumping onto a moving train
  • Beaumier Award for High School/CÉGEP Chemistry Teachers
  • Canada’s National Crystal Growing competition
  • All kids should have these…
  • Why are these tough questions?
  • Student teacher’s life lessons
  • Songs with an elemental twist
  • Unexpected misconception
  • Compressed organic class
  • Book review: Nuts and Bolts of Chemical Education Research
  • So why the lack of chemists?
  • Graham’s law of diffusion — a quantitative demonstration
  • A little help from my friends

May 2014

  • Cover: Lycopodium powder
  • Letters to the editor
  • A strange factoid about a zinc supplement
  • Sharing… goes beyond kindergarten
  • Phasing out the demo
  • Taking the poisonous bite out of cyanide and avoiding other poisons
  • An all-natural banana
  • What we can teach with hybrid orbitals
  • Chemicals in the news: Chemical explosion

April 2014

March 2014

  • Cover: Ammonia and hydrochloric acid
  • Kathy Kitzmann wins James Bryant Conant Award
  • Chance discovery favours the prepared mind
  • Forget about saving the planet, I just want to eat my snacks in peace
  • The American Chemical Society to fund American Association of Chemistry Teachers (AACT)
  • Use and misuse of technology in the university chemistry classroom
  • Princeton Day School’s periodic table
  • ChemEd 2013 workshops
  • Sharing chemistry with the community: A colorful catalyst
  • Para-Chlorobenzotrifluoride (PCBTF) – the ‘super-solvent’
  • Book review: The Case of the Poisonous Socks, Tales from Chemistry 
  • Singing Flame Tube at ChemEd 2013

February 2014

  • Cover: Ignite your passion 
  • Letters to the editor
  • Orbital hybridization — the stork
  • Xylenes — A cautionary tale
  • Part 2: Showing/doing chemistry using minimum-cost resources
  • Chemistry murals
  • Sharing chemistry with the community: “The Exploding Gummy Bear”
  • Chemistry: Its bond with the past
  • A Chemistry Olympiad question in Canadian context

December 2013 - January 2014

  • Cover: Chemis-tree 
  • Letters to the editor
  • Book review: The Half-Life of Facts - How Everything We Know Has An Expiration Date
  • Stop telling us how to do our job
  • Organic molecules of everyday life. 11. Frankincense and myrrh
  • A CD review: 2010 41st Annual Once Upon a Christmas Cheery In the Lab
  • Holiday molecules
  • Measuring CO2 at Mauna Loa
  • Student activity: Calibration at Mauna Loa
  • Carving a can with chemistry
  • Sharing chemistry with the community: Polyurethane foam smoothies
  • Student-created ceramic periodic table
  • Chemistry using minimum-cost resources, Part 1
  • Does teaching need changing?*
  • ChemEd 2013 traditional Mole Day Run
  • Deleted scene from Breaking Bad that a chemistry teacher can relate to

November 2013

  • Cover: The Ramp of Science
  • Diffusion of ions
  • “Who is the antiquirk?” A chemical analogy
  • Mysterious gas riddle — a discussion
  • ChemEd 2013 So You Think You Can Demo contest
  • Microscale hints from across the pond
  • What’s your kryptonite?
  • Tough questions from 2013 CHEM 13 NEWS exam
  • Canada nabs triple bronze

October 2013

September 2013

May 2013

  • Cover: Beauty of surface tension, spheres and attractive forces
  • Letter to the editor
  • An almost forgotten simplification…
  • Organic molecules of everyday life: 10. Hexenal
  • Public enemy number one?
  • Concentration of urine in a pool
  • Skeletal formulae revisited
  • Book review:The Violinist’s Thumb and Other Lost Tales of Love, War, and Genius as Written by Our Genetic Code

April 2013

  • Cover: A thermite blast 
  • Chemistry in the news: Doping
  • Does solid lithium hydrogen carbonate exist?
  • Ten first-year chemistry student studying misconceptions
  • Successful AP Chemistry lab sequence converted to inquiry approach
  • Photo challenge: what is it?
  • Sharing chemistry with the community: Propane Bubbles
  • Professor Wildi’s Visualization of Units pages for unit conversions

March 2013

  • Cover: Copper wire in silver nitrate solution 
  • Letters to the editor 
  • Book review:The Violinist’s Thumb and Other Lost Tales of Love, War, and Genius as Written by Our Genetic Code
  • Oh Henry story
  • Filter paper riddle
  • Demystifying the Poly Density Bottle
  • Reaction animation old style
  • Dogs teaching chemistry
  • The mole

February 2013

  • Cover: Pouring crystals 
  • Electron affinity, the oft-forgotten — yet essential – periodic property
  • What got me hooked on chemistry
  • Identifying polar molecules kinesthetically
  • A chemistry teacher brag page: Valentines 
  • Creative mole conversions
  • Pet molecule 

December 2012 - January 2013

November 2012

  • Cover: Glowing dyes  
  • Letters to the editor
  • There are no shortcuts
  • PM2.5 pollution on Science 2.0
  • An unusual and simply prepared compound of copper
  • STAO 2011: Rusty iron balls
  • Demistry of candles and flames
  • Sharing chemistry with the community: Miniature Whoosh Bottle Demonstration
  • Science poem
  • Book review: Denying Science - Conspiracy Theories, Media Distortions and the War Against Reality

October 2012

  • Cover Mole Cartoon
  • Chem rant
  • Halloween shout-outs
  • A tactile approach
  • The 2012 Olympic Games... in Washington DC!
  • A DVD review: The New Chem Source 
  • Why atoms, anyway? Teaching the origins of the atomic idea
  • Periodic table cupcakes using tile flags
  • Smiles in chemistry from birthdays to Mole Days
  • Chemistry helps shine a light on a paleontological mystery
  • Chem Mad Gab

September 2012

  • Cover: Mesmerized by bubbles 
  • Letter to the editor
  • Hunting the Elements
  • Communicate with your students using Twitter
  • Chemistry Twitter favorites
  • Pet peeve: skeletal organic formulas
  • New period in the periodic table?
  • Element 119 - Turning a line
  • Timely science humour
  • Periodic Table Project wall mural installation
  • iPod version Periodic Table Project
  • Names for elements 114 and 116
  • Design the new elemental tiles for the Periodic Table Project
  • Ode to Mendeleev
  • ChemEd conference memories
  • JCE welcomes new precollege editors
  • Have things changed in 25 years?

May 2012

  • Cover: “I think she might be hooked on science!” 
  • Letters to the editor
  • Book review: Chemical Demonstrations: A Handbook for Teachers in Chemistry, Volume 5
  • Crystal craziness in Clifford’s chemistry class
  • Joseph Priestley dephlogisticated air show…

April 2012

  • Cover:  Water and movement 
  • Letters to the editor
  • Pet peeves request
  • Why do I have to study chemistry, too (two)?
  • WolframAlpha: A valuable tool for chemistry….
  • Our Periodic Table project
  • Olympic medals in 2012
  • Book Review: Solving Everyday Problems with the Scientific Method
  • A chemistry poem

March 2012

  • Cover: Emerald-coloured crystals
  • Letters to the editor
  • A chemistry teacher’s pet peeves
  • A classroom limerick challenge
  • Book review: The Alchemy of Air
  • Erlenmeyer flask snow hat
  • Is magnesium nitride formed in the combustion of magnesium?
  • Play a Game!
  • When 2 minus 1 is not equal to 2 minus 1: a discrepant event

February 2012

  • Cover: Sugar crystallization
  • Letter to the editor
  • Chemical compounds: Why some are non-existent
  • Rules for solubility
  • Chocolate taste-test experiments
  • IQ variations in teenagers
  • Book review: Energy for a Sustainable World