Therese Houghton
Maryland Public Schools
MD

Archive: Green Chemistry-Is There a Place for it in High School Chemistry? November 9, 2010

Fri, May 13, 2011 11:01 AM
Bringing Chemistry Instruction into the 21c

I was very impressed with this resource. It shows how green chemistry can be used to practically cover a wide-range of traditional theoretical chemistry concepts such as: •Rates of reaction •Catalysis •Chemical cycles •Energy •Thermochemistry •Experimental design •Law of Conservation of Matter •Stoichiometry •Percent yield •Solubility •Polarity •Phase change •Organic chemistry •Synthesis The presenters explained three different experiments in detail with pictures of the lab setups which was very helpful. The calorimetry experiment is highly relevant to addressing the challenges that we, as a society, face concerning future energy conservation. I think that students will appreciate learning about relevant concepts such as 'atomic economy' and translating that concept to the processing level at the pilot and manufacturing plants. I think that teaching models based upon green chemistry offer the opportunity to branch out into application, which to my mind is the best w

Archive: Understanding the Brain: What Drugs Can Tell Us, March 24, 2011

Fri, May 13, 2011 9:59 AM
Great Visuals and Linked Resources

Excellent presentation of a fascinating subject. It's amazing how brain scanning and digital imaging has revolutionized medicine. To see the physical changes that take place within the brains of long-term drug users was interesting. I'm very curious to learn what experimental methods they used to detect changes to the chromatin. Are changes found during meiosis? Are the changes passed on to offspring? To what extent, and on which level? The presentation has many informative diagrams of the brain and visuals depicting the mechanisms of neuro-transmission. I would include some of them in a lesson for secondary science students. There are also many linked free resources provided. As a teacher, I'm interested in the impulse-control region of the brain because many of my students have little to no impulse control which disrupts their classroom learning experience.

A Template for Open Inquiry

Thu, May 12, 2011 6:33 PM
Better Inquiry Resources Available

Why are the authors suggesting to make a model based on kinematics to explain a phenomenon that occurs at reduced gravity? The article has a good rubric for scoring student inquiry methods, but I wouldn't use their methods as a template.