In the contemporary landscape of science education, teachers aspire to implement approaches that engage students with diverse teaching methods in diverse learning environments. By reviewing educational literature that deals with chemical escape rooms (ChEsRms), we can find several purposes they serve; however, only a few papers used ChEsRms for…

A hands-on symmetry project is proposed as an innovative way of teaching point groups to undergraduate chemistry students. Traditionally, courses teaching symmetry require students to identify the point group of a given object. This project asks the reverse: students are instructed to identify an object that matches each point group. Doing so…

Scenes from the works of William Shakespeare were incorporated into individual and group projects for an upper-level chemistry class, instrumental analysis. Students read excerpts from different plays and then viewed a corresponding video clip from a stage or movie production. Guided-research assignments were developed based on these scenes. These…

In a classroom or take-home activity, students are challenged to write their name as a combination of chemical-element symbols and calculate "their" molar mass. Age-appropriate versions ranging from middle school to entry-level college classes are discussed. Acceptable molar-mass suggestions may be used in a competition for the heaviest…

Music is not typically used in teaching high school- and college-level chemistry. This may be attributable to instructors' perceptions of educational music as being solely for memorization, their uncertainty about how to incorporate music effectively, or because of a limited number of suitable songs in which the music and words reinforce each…

Poetry reading is identified as a fun way to review chemistry topics and spark student interest in the beauty and mystery of chemistry. A reading of the poem "Jerry-Built Forever" (on various aspects of hemoglobin) is used as an example; the poem is included in the article. Details of how the reading was performed and reactions of the…

This work describes efforts to incorporate and evaluate the use of a YouTube writing assignment in large lecture classes to personalize learning and improve conceptual understanding of chemistry through peer- and self-explanation strategies. Although writing assignments can be a method to incorporate peer- and self-explanation strategies, this…

A classroom activity is presented in which students are challenged to find matches between the United States two-letter postal abbreviations for states and chemical element symbols. The activity aims to lessen negative apprehensions students might have when the periodic table of the elements with its more than 100 combinations of letters is first…

The use of recorded music to add interest to a variety of lecture topics is described. Topics include the periodic table, the formation of ionic compounds, thermodynamics, carbohydrates, nuclear chemistry, and qualitative analysis. (Contains 1 note.)

"Elements" is a competitive card game designed to help middle school students recognize and correlate the names and symbols of the most significant chemical elements. Each student is required to construct his or her own decks of playing cards--one with the names of the chemical elements and one with their corresponding symbols--and compete against…

The concentration game can be used as a complete class or a portion of it to help reinforce the material being presented or for review sessions. An environmental chemistry class review is presented with the use of the concentration game.

A sudoku puzzle was designed that incorporated lists of chemistry terms like polyatomic ions, organic functional groups or strong nucleophiles that students need to learn. It was found that students enjoyed solving such puzzles and also such puzzles made the boring tasks of memorizing basic chemical terms an exciting one.

This article describes a successful interdisciplinary collaboration among chemistry, humanities and English faculty members, who utilized poetry and artistic illustration to help students learn, appreciate, and enjoy chemistry. Students taking general chemistry classes were introduced to poetry writing and museum-type poster preparation during one…