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Chemical Education Today
JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu • Vol. 78 No. 5 May 2001 • Journal of Chemical Education 569
Four Years of JCE Classroom Activities
The publication of JCE Classroom Activity #36 (p 648A)marks the completion of the fourth consecutive school yearduring which an activity has been published each month fromSeptember through May. Activities are printed as user-friendlytear-outs on heavy paper; one side of the page is for the stu-dent, the other for the instructor. Teachers have permissionto make as many copies as they need for use in their class-rooms. Classroom Activities require minimal equipment andmost of the chemicals used are common consumer products.It is remarkable how many chemical concepts can be intro-duced using only baking soda and citric acid or vinegar!
Many familiar substances and materials are used ininnovative ways. Among my favorites: refrigerator magnets,light sticks, mothballs, blueberries, and UV-sensitive beads.The learner-centered Activities introduce ideas and conceptsin innovative ways that stimulate thought and the desire forfurther exploration. Many Activities can be done outside ofthe classroom or laboratory. The HS CLIC Web site, http://jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/HS/, provides a quick means of locat-ing any Classroom Activity. Clicking on the link to “ClassActivities” on the left side of the HS CLIC home page bringsup a page of information and links, including one to“Previous Activities”.
With increasing frequency, materials supplemental to theClassroom Activities are provided online. During the currentschool year, such materials (in the form of QuickTime mov-ies or PDF files) appeared with Activities #28, #29, #31, #33,and #36.
JCE instituted Classroom Activities on the basis of inputfrom high school teachers and supports their publicationthrough extraordinary efforts by the editorial staff in Madi-son. Nancy Gettys and Erica Jacobsen have written most ofthe activities and tested and edited all of them. I was excitedto review and recommend three activities written by highschool teachers that appeared this year: #31, Fizzy Drinks: Sto-ichiometry You Can Taste, by Brian Rohrig, December 2000;#33, Sink or Swim: The Cartesian Diver, by David Pinkerton,February 2001; and #36, Putting UV-Sensitive Beads to theTest, by Terre Trupp, in this issue. Many Classroom Activitiesare complemented by a full-length article. An example from theFebruary 2001 issue is an article by Pinkerton, CurriculumAlignment Projects: Toward Developing a Need to Know.
Do you have an effective activity that you use in yourclasses to illustrate key concepts? Submit it today. Follow thelinks to “Submission Guidelines” and “Criteria for Submitting”that appear on the Classroom Activities Web page of the HSCLIC site. To keep this feature vital and interesting, we need tohear from you. If you aren’t able to write a complete activity,send us an idea for one based on your experience as a chemistryteacher. Submit your suggestions to [email protected] with
the subject line “JCE Classroom Activity”. To paraphrase “It’syour journal, tell us what you would like it to be”: They’re yourclassroom activities, tell us what you would like them to be.
Mathematics and Introductory Chemistry
A distinctive feature of the JCE is its coverage of educa-tion issues at all levels, from pre-high-school science throughgraduate studies: high school teachers can learn about newdevelopments in college chemistry and college faculty canlearn about developments in high school chemistry. At thehigh school–college interface there is much overlap of issues.One of these is the level of mathematics understanding andskills required to learn chemistry. Both the National ScienceEducation Standards (1) and Principles and Standards forSchool Mathematics (2) note the role of mathematics andmathematics skills applied to the sciences. However, thedetails of implementation are left to the developers of statescience framework and local curriculum, and ultimately tothe classroom teacher.
Two articles in this issue provide insight into currentissues involving chemistry and mathematics at the collegeundergraduate level. One is a commentary, “What’s BeenHappening to Undergraduate Mathematics” (p 578); the otheris a report from a curriculum foundations workshop on themathematics skills that are important for success in chemistry(p 582). These are relevant to high school teachers for at leasttwo reasons. First, they increase understanding of what willbe expected of high school graduates who enroll in collegechemistry. Second, many issues that cut across interdisciplinarylines—in this case across mathematics and chemistry—are verysimilar whether considered by high school or college faculty,even though the content may be different. I think you willfind these articles interesting.
Literature Cited
1. National Science Education Standards; National Academy Press:Washington, DC, 1996; also available online: http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/nses/.
2. Principles and Standards for School Mathematics; NationalCouncil of Teachers of Mathematics: Washington, DC, 2000;also available online: http://standards.nctm.org/.
Especially for High School Teachersby J. Emory Howell
Secondary School Feature Articles
� Build a Simple Polarimeter, by Frank E. Stary and NormanWoldow, p 644.
� JCE Classroom Activity: #36. Putting UV-Sensitive Beads tothe Test, by Terre Trupp, p 648A.
Visit CLIC, an Online Resource for High School Teachers at http://jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/HS/
