Department of Chemistry
200 University Ave. W
Waterloo, Ontario,
Canada N2L 3G1
Chem13News@uwaterloo.ca
1968-present
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December 2018 - January 2019A simple electronegativity demonstration device
Many chemistry students experience difficulty in grasping the abstract concept of electronegativity and its significance in discussions involving polar covalent and nonpolar covalent bonding.
Category: Feature Activities Classroom Classics from 50 years 1968-present -
September 2018Quotes
Much has changed in the last 50 years, both with Chem 13 News, and the views of chemists. The following quotes were taken from the first year of publication, and definitely highlight the commonly accepted views of women in STEM at the time.
Category: Feature Classics from 50 years 1968-present -
December 2018 - January 2019Introducing paper chromatography
Doug De La Matter used the following story to explain the ideas of chromatography to his grade 9 science classes. They seem to understand the concepts so well that it becomes a useful reference when we talk about solubility and intermolecular forces again in senior chemistry classes. I present it as a fable and embellish it with lots of spurious details.
Category: Feature Activities Classroom Classics from 50 years 1968-present -
December 2018 - January 2019Christmas carols
“Deck the Labs” was printed in a 1980 December issue of Chem 13 News from George R. Hague, when he was at Hackensack High School, Hackensack, NJ. After 38 years this carol is still being sung.
Category: Feature Humour Classics from 50 years 1968-present -
December 2018 - January 2019
Aladdin’s lamp
A reprint from 1993 -- Gary Marcoux started this class with “Does anybody know what I have in this flask?” The students shuffle their feet and glance at each other, trying to see if anybody’s taking notes. “You know, I could have anything in here, anything at all”, I continue while holding up the flask. “This could be Aladdin’s Lamp.
Category: Feature Activities Classroom Classics from 50 years 1968-present -
December 2018 - January 2019The egg experiment
I do the "egg experiment" in the third week of school; it follows activities involving the operation of the balance, the precision of volumetric equipment, methods for the determination of volume and the uncertainty of measurement. The experiment is to collect enough data to verify or refute the statement that "the density of a whole chicken egg is equal to the arithmetic mean of its parts — the yolk, the white, and the shell".
Category: Feature Activities Classroom Classics from 50 years 1968-present -
November 2018Cartoonist — Uwe Oehler
Four different cartoon drawings
Category: Feature Classics from 50 years 1968-present -
November 2018Moles on the shelf
After I introduce moles to my chemistry class, I set out a display on a shelf that students see when they enter the room. The display is titled: SEE AND TOUCH A MOLE. It consists of samples of preweighed molar masses of about four elements and four compounds.
Category: Feature Classics from 50 years 1968-present -
November 2018
Famous visitors
To try and get my classes to appreciate the contributions made by famous scientists to their field, I suggest that they invite several scientists (living or dead!) to address them, and the replies which they may like to add to the list.
Category: Feature Classics from 50 years 1968-present -
November 2018
Chemical stream puzzle
Ever notice how some element names contain within them the symbols for other elements? “Potassium”, for example, contains “Si”, silicon, plus about eight others. Well, now you’ve noticed it…and you’ll need to think this way to solve the following puzzle, for you must string elements together in a sort of chemical stream of consciousness.
Category: Feature Classics from 50 years 1968-present -
November 2018
What’s this?
Can you figure out the nomenclature riddle?
Category: Feature Classics from 50 years 1968-present -
November 2018Invert without a mess
To invert a test tube (or bottle, etc.) filled with water into a beaker of water, place a piece of filter paper on top of the brim-full tube, wait until the water has soaked into the paper enough to hold it on, then invert the tube and insert it into the beaker at an angle slightly off-vertical. Once the tube mouth is under water, the paper will float off.
Category: Feature Activities Classroom Classics from 50 years 1968-present -
November 2018The US penny revealed
United States pennies have been minted in the past few years with the less expensive metal zinc as a center filler and the more expensive copper metal as an overall cover.
Category: Feature Activities Outreach Classics from 50 years 1968-present -
October 2018Cupcakes as oxygen molecules
Many students have difficulty in dealing with diatomic oxygen molecules when balancing equations in that they do not distinguish them from oxygen atoms.
Category: Feature Classics from 50 years 1968-present -
October 2018Sodium Award winner
After every test, I post the Sodium Award winners — for those who got Na (an “A”)!
Category: Feature Classics from 50 years 1968-present -
October 2018
Claude Émile Jean-Baptiste Litre
One of the most memorable articles carried in Chem 13 News was Ken Woolner’s short literary hoax — a biography of Claude Émile Jean-Baptiste Litre.
Category: Feature Classics from 50 years 1968-present -
October 2018
Chem 13 News most memorable hoax
One of the most memorable articles we ever carried in Chem 13 News was Ken Woolner’s short biography of Claude Émile Jean-Baptiste Litre. We reprint it here, complete with introduction, illustrations and final Editors’ note as it appeared in our April 1978 issue.
Category: Feature Classics from 50 years 1968-present -
October 2018Partial pencil pressure
It has recently been observed that some of the commonplace events and circumstances around the ordinary home are illustrations of the laws of science, and may be, in part, explained by them.
Category: Feature Classics from 50 years 1968-present -
September 201850 years ago we started something special
Since 1968, the University of Waterloo’s Chem 13 News magazine has provided a continuous resource to teachers of introductory chemistry worldwide. From its inception, Chem 13 News has played a lead role in developing passionate and concerned educators who inspire and groom the scientific leaders of tomorrow.
Category: Feature Classics from 50 years 1968-present -
September 2018Celebrating 1968-78 decade
Editor’s note: This puzzle was created by Gerry Toogood who still challenges readers with his crostic puzzles today. Be warned, this 50-year old puzzle is much more difficult (in our opinion) than Gerry’s current day crostics.
Category: Feature Classics from 50 years 1968-present -
September 2018
A chemist’s phrase book
numerous chemist's phrases
Category: Feature Classics from 50 years 1968-present -
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September 2018An idea to study corrosion: An overhead demonstration
Make an agar-agar gel by heating 300 mL of water to a boil. Stop heating. Stir into the water 2 g of powdered agar-agar. While the gel is still hot, have some Petri dishes ready. Place a straight nail and a bent nail in a Petri dish.
Category: Feature Classics from 50 years 1968-present -
September 2018Dimethyl chicken wire
Fun cartoon from the 1960s
Category: Feature Humour Cartoons, quotes, poems and fun Classics from 50 years 1968-present -
December 2017 - January 20181958 Annual Exam from the Ontario Department of Education
From 1948-1967 in order to pass high school chemistry, your grade was based solely on the province-wide exam. What did Ontario high school chemistry students need to know 60 years ago? On the next two pages check out a scan of one of the original final exams. It is a booklet of four small pages. Students were not given a periodic table and hand-held (pocket) calculators would not be around for another decade.
Category: Feature Classics from 50 years 1968-present -
December 2017 - January 2018Santa parent cartoon
Cute little Christmas cartoon but you have to know your elements...
Category: Feature Humour Cartoons, quotes, poems and fun Classics from 50 years 1968-present -
May 2016Question and answers from the past
In the 1970s and ’80s Chem 13 News had a long-running question and answer series. The questions were numbered and printed in the magazine and readers were asked to help answer questions. This is a reprint of one question, which was answered by several readers.
Category: Classics from 50 years 1968-present -
April 2016Question and answers from the past
In the 1970s and ’80s Chem 13 News had a long-running question and answer series. The questions were numbered and printed in the magazine and readers were asked to help answer questions. This was before a Google Search. There were about 250 questions asked — most answered by several readers.
Category: Classics from 50 years 1968-present -
December 2015 - January 2016A chemistry class to begin the year’s work (reprint from 1980)
Has teaching chemistry changed in the last 35 years? This December 1980 article in Chem 13 News describes how a teacher begins his school year. We would be interested to hear readers’ reactions to this 35-year old approach to a chemistry class. It certainly sounds like guided inquiry was at work.
Category: Classics from 50 years 1968-present -
February 2014Chemistry: Its bond with the past
Organic chemistry is enough to drive one mad! It is like a tropical forest, filled with the most peculiar things, dense, endless, impossible to find one’s way out of, a place which one should avoid entering.
Category: Classics from 50 years 1968-present -
November 2013“Who is the antiquirk?” A chemical analogy
“Solving a Chemical Problem” is a laboratory exercise in Exercises and Experiments in Chemistry by Metcalfe Williams and Castka (1978). It is an exercise in the testing of unknown solutions in a systematic manner.
Category: Classics from 50 years 1968-present -
September 2012Have things changed in 25 years?
During the past thirty years, there has been little change in the reasons that college students fail.
Category: Classics from 50 years 1968-present Feature -
Rules for solubility
Potassium, sodium and ammonium salts, Whatever they may be Can always be depended on For solubility.
Category: Feature Activities Classroom Classics from 50 years 1968-present