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As a science teacher, if you were asked for an example of a catalyst, your car’s catalytic converter may come to mind. Most informed citizens would do the same. What may come as a surprise is that catalytic converters have dramatically changed in the past decade and now use only a small fraction of the precious metals that older models used.

During the data collection phase of research into the high school–university transition in chemistry, my attention was caught by one comment that quite literally stated, “Our high school teachers lied to us.”

This is a continuation of the Thought Labs used as review for AP Chemistry. This style of review allows students to incorporate the skills they have acquired throughout their course experience in AP Chemistry while providing a platform for them to increase their comfort level in situations where they are asked to apply their learning to a new lab setting. 

This is a continuation of the Thought Labs used as review for AP Chemistry. This style of review allows to students to incorporate the skills they have acquired throughout their course experience in AP Chemistry while providing a platform for them to increase their comfort level in situations where they are asked to apply their learning to a new lab setting. 

I co-instruct and coordinate an undergraduate materials and nanoscience (MNS) lab at the University of Waterloo. One experiment in 2nd year consistently stands out as my students’ favourite, and it involves the synthesis and characterization of “capped” cadmium selenide (CdSe) “quantum dots” (QDs).

The cost of everything keeps going up! What’s a laboratory science instructor to do when it comes time to place an order for chemicals and equipment for the next year? One solution is to find cheaper substitutes that can still achieve the desired student outcomes.

A couple of years ago, with the re-write of the AP Chemistry test and the increased focus on inquiry...

I’m not sure where I first saw this poster, but knew right away it would look great in a chemistry classroom. It captures each element’s unique spectrum, which demonstrates how these spectra can be used as a fingerprints to identify elements. Field Tested Systems created this poster to go along with its many products that allow students — and their teachers — to explore classroom gas-tube spectroscopy and astronomical spectroscopy.

With a quick internet search, I found a Flinn Scientific video by Lee Marek presenting this demonstration called “Potato Candle”...

This is a favourite of the students. On the front cover, the pink colour in the test tube comes from cobalt(II) ions in water, Co(H₂O)₆²⁺. The blue colour is the result of cobalt chloride complex ions (CoCl₄^2–) in less dense acetone. This classic Le Châtelier’s Principle lab explores the reversible chemical reaction.