'Chemicals'
If you want some interesting posters to liven up your lab/classroom you might want to look at those produced for sale by James Kennedy, a teacher at Haileybury School in Melbourne, Australia. In an attempt...
Who discovered oxygen?
In the new Guide for first teaching in 2014 under Stoichiometric relationships, it states in the Theory of Knowledge part of 1.1 “Lavoisier’s discovery of oxygen, which overturned the phlogiston theory...
First commercial fuel cell car
One of the topics in the new Energy option for 2014 onwards is the thermodynamic efficiency of fuel cells. This is equal to ΔG/ΔH and the value is much higher than for conventional fossil fuels. It seems...
Arden Zipp
One of the real joys of teaching is that you can make a huge difference to other people. Perhaps the greatest reward is when former students tell you how much influence you have had upon them. I certainly...
Where is your country on the Pisa scale?
Where is your country on the Pisa list? The Pisa (Programme for International Student Assessment) results were announced today. Pisa is carried out by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development...
Investigate an aspect of diving submarines
Regular readers of this website will know that I am a fan of using materials readily available in supermarkets, for example beer bottle caps in the determination of the formula of magnesium oxide. I have...
Design experiments with esters
Teachers are always looking for suitable topics to give their students for design experiments. One common starting point is “Investigate an aspect of esterification”. This is actually given as an example...
CNT computers
The new chemistry curriculum for first examinations in 2016 will be released within the next two or three months. We already know that there will be four options and that one of them is called ‘Materials’....
The beauty molecule
I guess everyone has seen TV adverts where a particular product contains a fancy sounding special chemical and the treatment it provides has been ‘clinically proven’ to work. One that caught my eye recently...
Two-dimensional chromatography
When teaching paper or thin-layer chromatography for the current Options A or B many teachers include the technique of rotating the paper or glass slide 90o and performing the chromatography again with...