Student teachers at Ball State University are required to complete an in-depth unit long data driven analysis of their student teaching called Learning Assessment Model Project (LAMP). I chose to run the project during the stoichiometry unit. Stoichiometry is a unifying topic of chemistry. It synthesizes previously taught topics of writing chemical formulas, calculating molar masses, performing molar conversions, and balancing chemical reaction equations so that students may apply prior knowledge to its fullest use. Stoichiometry is rigorous and challenging for students. My aim was to make this topic both accessible and useful for my students by relating it to their everyday lives. We chose the stoichiometry unit to run our LAMP project in as most students, except possibly those who have taken integrated chemistry and physics, have no experience with stoichiometry. We wanted to see the direct impact that our teaching had upon students. The following is a summary of the project, its outcome and conclusions drawn from it.
Category Archives: InTASC 5
Stoichiometry Project
A requirement of the LAMP project was to have students complete a project related to the unit of study. My LAMP project was completed during the stoichiometry unit, so the project I assigned involved students profiling a kind of chemical reaction of interest to them, and then performing a 5 gram mole to mole stoichiometry calculation using a balanced reaction involving that reaction. The end product students produced was either a poster or a brochure describing their reaction, with an illustration and the required calculations outlined. The results were fantastic:
Science Behind the Thanksgiving Day Table
Oftentimes, the last school day before a break is a day of lost instruction. My goal in forestalling this before Thanksgiving was to plan a lesson based around the science of things found on a Thanksgiving Day table. Continue reading Science Behind the Thanksgiving Day Table
Problem-Based Learning: Unit Plan
Students complain that school isn’t relatable. Employers complain that we don’t generate problem solvers. Problem Based Learning answers the complexities of both of these issues in one fell swoop, all the while being aligned to state curriculum standards.
Alexandria received a grant of $335,000 from the state of Indiana as part of the Hardest Hit Fund Blight Elimination Program to help with the demolition of eyesore properties around town. The question remains: was this a good deal for the city? A slideshow outlining the entire project may be viewed at: https://www.emaze.com/@AFRWRLTW/razed-and-rising
Find Me a Solution, Please
The origin of this activity stemmed from myself graduating with a degree in chemistry, without ever calculating or making a 1.0 M solution. I felt that this was a disservice to myself, and vowed that my students wouldn’t have the same experience.
Celebrating 10/23: Mole Day Activities
October 23 is recognized and celebrated by chemists worldwide as a day of celebration for the unit of measure specific to our field: the mole. We voted to spend the day doing activities reinforcing the mole concept. A link to the full list of activities from that day may be found here.
Quality Control of Al Foil Inquiry Lab
When our Chemistry I classes were initially studying the unit of the mole, I wanted to find an activity using real life materials to further relate the mole concept. Initially I thought of using aluminum foil, and found a quality control lab that I liked, so I modified it to include mass measurements and mole conversions. Click here for the complete file download of this activity.
Mole Madness Activity
What’s in a mole? 6.022 EE 23 atoms/molecules for sure, but what does a mole look like? That depends on the molar mass of a given compound. The goal of generating this particular activity was to have students calculate the molar mass of three common household compounds, sugar, baking soda and sodium chloride, and then to measure out the same number of moles of each compound and visually compare the amounts of each compound to see how much space a given amount of moles occupies.
Discussion: Special Ed v. Bilingual Ed
I lead the class discussion over two readings covering the areas of both special education and bilingual education, including Hochschild & Scovronick’s chapter on separation and inclusion from their book The American Dream and Public Schools and Olneck’s article “What Have Immigrants Wanted From American Schools? What Do They Want Now? Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Immigrants, Language and American Schooling.” I offered the group a list of 35 traits of special ed and bilingual ed and asked the class to divide them according to what they felt were controversies and successes of each, without repeating topics. The relay of this information was done electronically, with a goal to construct a real time web of concepts utilizing bubble.us to showcase a potential technology to my cohort fellows. The map that they constructed during the discussion is below: Continue reading Discussion: Special Ed v. Bilingual Ed