This website provides clear, step-by-step procedures for conducting/demonstrating chemistry experiments in a classroom using materials that you can frequently get at home. The demonstrations are part of the Virtual ChemBook that has the supplementary materials for chemistry courses at Elmhurst College in Illinois. Consequently, there are many links in the Demonstrations to chemical explanations that would be typically found in honors and undergraduate chemistry textbooks.
Type of Material:
Collection
Recommended Uses:
A resource for classroom chemistry demonstrations.
A step-by-step guide for students to perform simple chemical demonstrations using every day materials
A general source for explanations and definitions of chemical concepts and terms
Technical Requirements:
Internet browser
Identify Major Learning Goals:
Students develop a deeper understanding of how chemical demonstrations with every day materials are the basis for chemistry concepts.
Parents explore a variety of investigations that can be done with their children at home.
Teachers discover how to use simple chemical demonstrations to enhance their science lessons.
Target Student Population:
late elementary, middle school,high school and undergraduate school students; preservice teachers; elementary school teachers of science and middle school science teachers; undergraduate students and teachers in an introductory chemistry course for non majors
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:
None
Content Quality
Rating:
Strengths:
Clear and concise step-by-step directions
Photographs of the actual demonstrations (when provided) that really show what the various steps should look like
Chemistry concepts are adequately explained
Concerns:
This is very cookbook like
The demonstrations themselves do not lead to further questions or wonderings
Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool
Rating:
Strengths:
This is a very effective means of exploring chemistry and exposing students at all levels to chemistry, The step-by-step sequence of events for each demonstration are clear and demonstrate effective lesson design.
Concerns:
There is very little information about how to use these demonstrations as teaching and learning tools
Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty
Rating:
Strengths:
The website is very simple and the instructions for the demonstrations seem easy to follow.
Concerns:
It is easy to get lost in the Virtual ChemBook and difficult to readily navigate back to the demonstrations. Many of the supplementary links are either inactive or link to sites that are disabled or gone.
Creative Commons:
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