Editor's note: We will update these links for 2019 but if we haven't yet, just contact us and we will make sure we get you the information to sign up! The sign up link will probably change.
Update from 2018: sign up http://bit.ly/Molympics2018. You can always email us and we will give you the most current contact!
On Mole Day (October 23) high school chemistry students will have the opportunity to compete in the fifth annual “Mole Olympics” or as we like to call it, Molympics. Why? It is an opportunity to learn about the mole, Avogadro’s number (6.02 x 1023) and its importance in chemistry. Mole Day is celebrated annually on 10/23 from 6:02 am to 6:02 pm.
Molympics was designed by several chemistry teachers from across the United States who met over Twitter and wanted to collaborate to develop a laboratory activity involving skills such as estimation, measurement, dimensional analysis and problem solving. After several Google Hangouts, the Molympics competition was created. This is our fifth year and we have had over 20 teachers participate from across the USA.
Molympics consists of five annual events designed to get students at all levels out of their seats and start thinking about the mole beyond pen-and-paper problem solving.
To participate, teachers:
- simply register their schools,
- organize five event stations from downloaded information sheets,
- monitor and score each team and
- submit the school’s top three scores and times for each event into our Google Form.
Several reasons to participate are:
- All events are teacher-designed and tested. It is perfect for teachers who have never celebrated Mole Day as well as for teachers who want to try something different for this special day. Like all teacher-designed activities, we are constantly revising the events to maximize learning. We update the Molympics every year based on feedback and personal experiences.
- Students love to know they are competing against other schools across the country (and hopefully Canadian and international Chem 13 News readers will make it a worldwide competition).
- The events were designed to engage students in the mole concept using different methods.
- Did we mention it was free?
We have tried to think of everything a teacher would need to easily participate. We have a Google Doc for everything: print-ready event descriptions for each station, presentation information, rules, teacher tally sheets, team tally sheets, material lists, a teacher’s to-do list, general suggestions and a continually updated FAQ page.
Teams of students score points for correct calculations, accuracy, and/or fastest times in order to compete against teams from other schools. The winning school will earn bragging rights and a trophy that travels to the top school each year. Certificates will be awarded to the highest placing teams in each event.
If you are interested in having your students participate in Molympics 2017, please register at https://t.co/gIaw8emdJv. We would love to include you in this friendly learning competition.
[This is for 2017, email Chem 13 News if you have any problems registering in a future year. We will make sure you get the most recent registration links and information. ]
Molympics is organized and run by high school chemistry teachers:
- Wendy Czerwinski, Burlington High School, Burlington, MA
- Ann Gardner, Mayfield High School,Las Cruces, NM
- LuAnn Lee, Waynesfield - Goshen High School, Waynesfield, OH
and the authors of this article.
We are all active users of Twitter, so we will be encouraging participants to tweet about their competitions.
