Hands-on chemistry comes home Science is one of those topics that just has to be experienced to be understood. When I was a public elementary school teacher, I truly saw the importance of hands-on activities where science was concerned. For kids to be able to connect to what is truly magical about the world around us, they have to feel it, touch it, and experiment with it. Finding ways to come up with experiments to perform, and the money to do it, is harder to do than it sounds. All of these factors add up to a need for convenient, expert science tools that parents can implement at home and kids can have fun doing. Convenient Chemistry at Home I recently got a behind-the-scenes look at MEL Science, a company that offers an interactive chemistry experiment subscription service that pairs the best of hands-on learning with mobile technology. 38 (!!) The company was founded by a small group of self-proclaimed “science geeks” who saw the need for better at-home science options when they had children of their own.
The Study of Matter Activities Distinguish between chemical and physcial changes with this "Changes in Matter" activity. Prepare unknown samples of heterogeneous mixtures, homogeneous mixtures (solutions), and pure substances, then use this "Classifying Chemicals Using Properties" activity. It includes an evaluation in PDF form. American Chemical Society ChemCollective General Chemistry Interactive Simulations Chapter 2 Periodic Table Coulomb's Law Names and Formulas of Ionic Compounds Chapter 3 Compounds, Molecules, and Moles Limiting Reactants Chapter 4 Acid Ionization Solubility of Ionic Compounds The pH Scale Titrations Chapter 5 Calorimetry Measuring Heats of Reaction Heat Transfer Between Substances Hess's Law Specific Heat Capacity Chapter 6 Atomic Absorbtion and Emission Planck's Equation Chapter 7 Atomic Electron Configurations Electron Configurations of Ions Atomic Orbital Energies Effective Nuclear Charge, Z* Electron Configurations 1 Paramagnetic and Diamagnetic Atoms Sizes of Atoms and Ions Chapter 8 Bond Energy and Delta H of Reaction Determining Electron Pair Geometry Determining Molecular Polarity Determining Molecular Shapes 1 Determining Molecular Shapes 2 Drawing Lewis Structures 1 Drawing Lewis Structures 2 Resonance Structures Chapter 9 Chapter Organic Addition Reactions of Alkenes Nomenclature of Alkanes Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18
Units and Unit Conversions | The Cavalcade o' Chemistry On this page: What’s a unit?SI vs. Units, units, units. What’s a unit? Wiktionary says that a unit is “a standard measure of a quantity.” Units are the things you stick after a number that tell you how big something is, and does it in a way that everybody can understand. Units are widely accepted. Of course, it’s nice for everybody to agree on the same units before starting a project. SI vs. As you’ve probably heard, the units that you’ll need to be concerned with are the International System of units (abbreviated as SI because it comes from the French for “Le Système international d’unités“). Now, as an aside, let’s ask the big question many of you Americans are thinking right now: Why do we have to learn a different set of units? Here’s why people say that Imperial units are worse than SI units: It’s because these people don’t understand what they’re talking about. As a result, you need to learn SI units. What are the units we’re interested in? Meters (m) are used to measure length.