My ImagineIT project has been created for my five sections of tenth grade honors chemistry. Approximately 160 high achieving, highly motivated students will take part in this project through daily 50 minute classes for the duration of the 2016-2017 school year. These students have never taken a chemistry course, but have investigated some chemistry concepts in previous coursework.
The major focus of this project is to envision learning physical science as learning to speak and read a language. From this foundation, I am hopeful that I can help students appreciate the importance of mastering the multitude of new symbols that are essential for building any concrete understanding of chemistry. I hope to enhance my students’ motivation for the often time tedious work of memorizing and manipulating the visual representations of units of measurement, elements, isotopes, ions, states of matter, etc. By sharing accessible examples of wonder and scientific investigations, I hope to open my students’ eyes to the amazingly beautiful and mysterious natural phenomena that exist in this universe and model how speaking the language of physical science can begin to unlock these mysteries.
One of my goals in this course is to uncover the relationship between the very small particles that make up our universe and the behavior of everyday materials on our planet. I also aim to help students understand that “space,” often misconstrued as totally foreign, is made up of these same exact particles. This will include investigations of units of measurement, elements, isotopes, ions, states of matter, chemical reactions, energy and chemical quantities. Performances of understanding to assess progress in learning these concepts will include guided inquiry laboratory investigations, student directed research presentations, student created example problem videos, class discussions, traditional procedural laboratory experiments, skills based laboratory practicums and group practice problem solving sessions, as well as traditional multiple choice and free response formative and summative assessments.
One huge stumbling block that has traditionally impeded fluency in predicting and analyzing chemical reactions is a lack of familiarity with the abbreviations for the common cations and anions. I plan to allow students to mix and match solutions of these common ions - investigating color changes, precipitation and gas formation. I'll also show some more spectacular reactions via demonstration to spark curiosity, before handing out the list of common cations and anions that need to be memorized (see table below). My hope is to uncover for my students the magnitude of possible combinations and properties associated with these combinations to help motivate them to memorize the required ions.
To assist them in strengthening their recall capabilities, I intend to design and publish a mobile app or game that lets kids practice their ions on their phones. Online flashcards such as Quizlet already exist, but they fail to reinvent the standard analog flash card in any meaningful way. Instead, they just recreate the same repetitive dynamic in a new medium. I hope to use creativity and humor to give students the chance to interact with these tedious but absolutely essential letters of the “chemistry alphabet” in order to help them solidify their knowledge of these crucial abbreviations. In approaching these ions by combining independent learning and clear expectations with technology, I hope that more students will be prepared to learn the bigger and better things that await after they’ve been mastered.
The major focus of this project is to envision learning physical science as learning to speak and read a language. From this foundation, I am hopeful that I can help students appreciate the importance of mastering the multitude of new symbols that are essential for building any concrete understanding of chemistry. I hope to enhance my students’ motivation for the often time tedious work of memorizing and manipulating the visual representations of units of measurement, elements, isotopes, ions, states of matter, etc. By sharing accessible examples of wonder and scientific investigations, I hope to open my students’ eyes to the amazingly beautiful and mysterious natural phenomena that exist in this universe and model how speaking the language of physical science can begin to unlock these mysteries.
One of my goals in this course is to uncover the relationship between the very small particles that make up our universe and the behavior of everyday materials on our planet. I also aim to help students understand that “space,” often misconstrued as totally foreign, is made up of these same exact particles. This will include investigations of units of measurement, elements, isotopes, ions, states of matter, chemical reactions, energy and chemical quantities. Performances of understanding to assess progress in learning these concepts will include guided inquiry laboratory investigations, student directed research presentations, student created example problem videos, class discussions, traditional procedural laboratory experiments, skills based laboratory practicums and group practice problem solving sessions, as well as traditional multiple choice and free response formative and summative assessments.
One huge stumbling block that has traditionally impeded fluency in predicting and analyzing chemical reactions is a lack of familiarity with the abbreviations for the common cations and anions. I plan to allow students to mix and match solutions of these common ions - investigating color changes, precipitation and gas formation. I'll also show some more spectacular reactions via demonstration to spark curiosity, before handing out the list of common cations and anions that need to be memorized (see table below). My hope is to uncover for my students the magnitude of possible combinations and properties associated with these combinations to help motivate them to memorize the required ions.
To assist them in strengthening their recall capabilities, I intend to design and publish a mobile app or game that lets kids practice their ions on their phones. Online flashcards such as Quizlet already exist, but they fail to reinvent the standard analog flash card in any meaningful way. Instead, they just recreate the same repetitive dynamic in a new medium. I hope to use creativity and humor to give students the chance to interact with these tedious but absolutely essential letters of the “chemistry alphabet” in order to help them solidify their knowledge of these crucial abbreviations. In approaching these ions by combining independent learning and clear expectations with technology, I hope that more students will be prepared to learn the bigger and better things that await after they’ve been mastered.
POLYATOMIC IONS
Ammonium NH4 1+ Hypochlorite ClO 1-
Nitrite NO2 1- Chlorite ClO2 -
Nitrate NO3 1- Chlorate ClO3 -
Sulfite SO3 2- Perchlorate ClO4 1-
Sulfate SO4 2- Acetate C2H3O2 1 -
Hydroxide OH 1- Permanganate MnO4 1-
Cyanide CN 1- Peroxide O2 2-
Phosphate PO4 3- Oxalate C2O4 2-
Carbonate CO3 2- Chromate CrO4 2-
Hydrogen carbonate HCO3 1– Dichromate Cr2O7 2-
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Ammonium NH4 1+ Hypochlorite ClO 1-
Nitrite NO2 1- Chlorite ClO2 -
Nitrate NO3 1- Chlorate ClO3 -
Sulfite SO3 2- Perchlorate ClO4 1-
Sulfate SO4 2- Acetate C2H3O2 1 -
Hydroxide OH 1- Permanganate MnO4 1-
Cyanide CN 1- Peroxide O2 2-
Phosphate PO4 3- Oxalate C2O4 2-
Carbonate CO3 2- Chromate CrO4 2-
Hydrogen carbonate HCO3 1– Dichromate Cr2O7 2-
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