This article describes a game designed to help Spanish high school students (grade 10, age 15-16) understand the periodic table. It combines some features of bingo and a puzzle in the same pedagogical game, making it an engaging approach for learning about this important teaching tool. Students are given a verbal clue -- the name of a chemical…

People use many different products made from plastics every day. But conventional plastics such as polyvinyl chloride (PVC) do not always have a good reputation in society at large. Bioplastics such as thermoplastic starch (TPS) promise to be better alternatives but are they really better than conventional plastics? This article presents a new…

This article describes a field course in Cornwall looking at mineral processing with the focus on the chemistry involved. The course was split into two parts. The first looked at tin mining based around Penzance. This involved visiting mines, hunting for mineral samples, carrying out a stream survey and visiting the Camborne School of Mines…

This "Science note" arose out of practical work involving the dilution of ethanoic acid, the measurement of the pH of the diluted solutions and calculation of the acid dissociation constant, K[subscript a], for each diluted solution. The students expected the calculated values of K[subscript a] to be constant but they found that the…

Drawing on research into students' understanding, this article argues that the customary approach to introductory chemistry has created difficulties for students. Instead of being based on the notion of "solids, liquids and gases", introductory chemistry should be structured to develop the concept of a substance. The concept of a…

"Visible teaching and learning" is an educational philosophy that makes the processes and endpoints in a classroom highly visible and understandable to all involved. This was translated into a series of lesson "roadmaps" for a group of chemistry students studying rates of reaction and reaction energetics. Their end-of-unit…

"CHEM"opera is an opera blended with demonstrations of chemical reactions. It has been produced and performed twice by chemistry undergraduate students at Hallym University in South Korea. It aims to demonstrate interesting chemical reactions to chemistry students, children and the public and to facilitate their understanding of the role…

This article looks at the events that led to the discovery of isotopes in the early part of the 20th century. It is difficult to claim that the discovery was a single event. A number of famous scientists worked independently to provide the evidence, and the understanding of the need to think differently about atoms gradually emerged. Four varied…

This "Science note" teaching lesson explores the possible reaction between the ions in a reaction mixture consisting of iron(II) iodide and potassium dichromate(VI) in acidified aqueous solution. The electrode potentials will be used to deduce any spontaneous reactions under standard thermodynamic conditions (298 K, 1 bar (approximately…

This article describes how a university and a museum have worked together to create a "How science works" workshop entitled "What's in our water?" The workshop teaches students about the continuing pollution from a disused coal mine, how the pollution is cleaned up using a state-of-the-art treatment works and how…

A recent Government response to shortages of new physics and chemistry teachers is the extended subject knowledge enhancement (SKE) course. Graduates without a physics or chemistry bachelor degree are prepared by an SKE course to enter a Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) programme to become science teachers with a physics or chemistry…

We would like the general public to be able to make informed choices about issues that involve chemicals and which impact on personal lifestyle and even national policy. Helping them make the right decisions requires chemists to become more articulate. Here is an account of a chemist who started his career writing articles for scientific journals…

The chemistry behind practical special effects in the film and television industry is discussed, along with examples of commonly used chemical demonstrations that simulate them in the laboratory. (Contains 3 figures.)

This article demonstrates one particular difficulty of interpreting students' use of language in science classrooms: determining whether a student's writing indicates a misconception or a misrepresentation. Students' written assignments from a case study are used to illustrate instances where multiple interpretations are possible.…

This "Science Note" looks at the way that the shapes of simple molecules can be explained in terms of the number of electron pairs in the valence shell of the central atom. This theory is formally known as valence shell electron pair repulsion (VSEPR) theory. The article explains the preferred shape of chlorine trifluoride (ClF3),…