There is something mystical about hot air balloons.  Yes, the students can say they work because “hot air rises” but sheesh that’s not a...

Ideal gas law.  Avogadro’s law.  Boyle’s law.  Combined gas law.  Graham’s law.  Charle’s law.  Gay-Lussac’s law.  Fred’s second cousin’s...

We as teachers largely use tests as the measuring stick of success for our students.  By proxy, we are measuring the success of our...

Kid’s love solving mysteries.  Kids love competing.  I just tried a coffee cup calorimetry lab that did both!  The kids got to solve for...

It's time to unwind a bit and recharge. Need some ideas? Try Spring Break Teacher Bingo! Extra credit if you black out the board. You...

Kids love a mystery.  They also love uncovering a corporate “cheat”.  Most don’t love stoichiometry as much.  But, if you wrap...

Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best.  Just a couple of weeks ago, my grade-level chemistry class was struggling knowing how to...

Predicting the products of chemical reactions and then balancing those same reactions can be intimidating for grade-level chemistry...

“We actually did real chemistry!” That was a quote from a girl in yesterday’s lab.  She actually did real chemistry.  And what a feeling...

Sometimes it just all works out right.  The timing of the lessons and the timing of a lab.  This year, I introduced a simple new lab...

Chemistry can feel dangerous to a student.  There are so many pitfalls that you and I so easily avoid, and yet the students repeatedly...

Progressions are important.  If I dove straight into a max effort weight training and health kick, I would get disappointed in the...

Something wonderful happened yesterday.  My room was full at lunch.  I mean really full.  And all of them were helping each other to...

Something beautiful happened in the last test of the semester.  Less kids failed.  I mean a lot less.  And it wasn’t an easy test.  In...

We are teachers.  We like to know that we know stuff.  Kids think that we know stuff.  If you wear your lab coat out of the room,...

Sometimes the simplest ideas actually work.  Shocking, I know.  Having just taught about the idea of buffers, I felt like the students...

There are many ways to teach the inverse relationship between wavelength and frequency of photons.  Videos. Slinkies. But I think this...

The electron configuration unit can get a little dry.  Electron configuration is a tough unit for highly connected labs.  Try using this...

I was listening to a bird hunting podcast about how to train your bird dog, and I realized that they might as well have been talking...

Tests used to be punitive.  I wielded them like a weapon, seeking out those who were underprepared and chopping them down like the...