Building scientific arguments is a central ability for all scientists regardless of their specific domain. In organic chemistry, building arguments is a necessary skill to estimate reaction processes in consideration of the reactivities of reaction centres or the chemical and physical properties. Moreover, building arguments for multiple reaction…

Research in Organic Chemistry education has revealed students' challenges in mechanistic reasoning. When solving mechanistic tasks, students tend to focus on explicit surface features, apply fragmented conceptual knowledge, rely on rote-memorization and, hence, often struggle to build well-grounded causal explanations. When taking a resource…

"Sustainability" is a very general term and the question arises how to specify it within daily laboratory work. In this regard, appropriate metrics could support a socially acceptable, ecological and economic product development. The application of metrics for sustainability should be strengthened in education, because they do not belong…

A case is described of the development of a lesson plan for 10th grade (age range 15-16) chemistry classes on the chemistry of shower gels. The lesson plan follows a socio-critical and problem-oriented approach to chemistry teaching. This means that, aside from learning about the basic chemistry of the components making up modern shower gels in…

This paper discusses a chemistry lesson plan on potato crisps for 10th grade (age range 15-16) chemistry classes in Germany. The lesson plan focuses on the discussion about low-fat and low-carb diets as they are presented in everyday media such as TV or newspapers in Germany. The discussion follows a socio-critical and problem-oriented approach to…