A bottle of liquid water in ice

Weird and wonderful water

2023-12-04T06:26:00+00:00By

Why the universal solvent is unlike any other liquid and its properties are still a mystery

Education in Chemistry

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Ideas

A beaker of dark green bubbling liquid with condensation forming on the side had a temperature probe reporting into a laptop which shows a line graph of the temperature increasing

How to build understanding of Gibbs free energy

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Help your students master this fundamental post-16 topic with these effective tips and teaching strategies

A group of wooden red blocks and one orange and one purple wooden pyramids

8 ways to boost student understanding with examples and non-examples

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Help students fully grasp tough chemistry concepts by using example sets to explain them

A glass bottle of ethanol labelled highly flammable and harmful with ethanol burning in a spirit burner

How to teach combustion and oxidation at 11–14

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Use these 5 tried-and-tested tips to teach combustion safely and effectively

Exciting demos

A series of photos of glass beakers of a clear blue liquid turning to an opaque orange. Then another clear chemical is added by syringe and the liquid turns back to clear blue.

Reversible reactions with transition metal complexes

A number of glass conical flasks attached by clamps to a metal stand. Each flask has a colourful balloon sealed around its neck that has been sucked inside the flask.

Demonstrate changes of state using volume differences

Lots of small bubbles in a clear liquid rising to the surface

Creating a supersaturated gas evolving oscillator

A glass vial with a white lid containing a green liquid that is separating between blue at the top and yellow at the bottom. Other vials of different two-colour liquids are behind.

Demonstrate intermolecular forces with colourful separations

A round glass flask holding blue liquid and a teabag

Brew up interest in redox with this quick reduction

  • Reversible reactions with transition metal complexes

  • Demonstrate changes of state using volume differences

  • Creating a supersaturated gas evolving oscillator

  • Demonstrate intermolecular forces with colourful separations

  • Brew up interest in redox with this quick reduction

Evidence-based teaching

A glass conical flask of green liquid in a lab setting

How to banish misconceptions with a green chemistry curriculum

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Evidence-informed tips on how a greener approach can improve problem-solving abilities and address misconceptions

The word electrochemistry connected in the style of a circuit board to other related chemistry terms such as thermodynamics, potential difference, chemical equilibrium, electrical circuits, bond concepts, solution chemistry, oxidation states and energy

Overcoming electrochemistry misconceptions

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Use evidence-based research and teacher-tested tips to help your students master this challenging topic

Textbooks in a school backpack

How to use textbooks effectively

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Discover why not all chemistry textbooks are created equal – and what you can do about it

Opinion

A cartoon of school students wearing lab coats carrying pieces of a jigsaw showing the elements of a practical chemistry investigation

The realities of reintroducing assignments in Scotland

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Teacher Laura Scoular considers what this means for teachers and students

A cartoon of people discussing covid

Share your Covid story

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Tell us how you found lockdown, remote teaching, social distancing – your whole experience of the Covid-19 pandemic

An illustration of a pencil split into different science items including a clamp, a conical flask and an energy saving lightbulb

Why AAQs are the future

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Discover the diverse and enriching new post-16 study pathways, available from 2025

Meet our 2023 Education Prize winners

Join us in celebrating excellence and innovation in the teaching of chemistry

Find out more

How to teach ...

An artwork relating the periodic table to atomic orbitals and the energy to fill them

Everything you need to teach atomic structure and periodicity at post-16

Two glasses of water - one open with the water evaporating away, and the other has a lid so the water cannot escape

How to teach reversible reactions and equilibrium at 14–16

A row of horseshoe crabs in a lab where a woman in a lab coat and hair covering is extracting their blue blood

How to teach post-16 transition metals and complex ions

A ball rolling down a slope

Everything you need to teach energetics at 14–16

Two halves of a lemon wired together and to a red bulb that is glowing. On the table written in chalk is a plus and minus sign and a lightning bolt

How to teach electrochemistry at post-16

  • Everything you need to teach atomic structure and periodicity at post-16

  • How to teach reversible reactions and equilibrium at 14–16

  • How to teach post-16 transition metals and complex ions

  • Everything you need to teach energetics at 14–16

  • How to teach electrochemistry at post-16

News & analysis

A laser targets an M made of squished blue blobs on a metallic sheet

Making ammonia production greener

Could lasers offer a more sustainable alternative to the Haber process

A diagram showing the nucleus of and atom that starts as Fluorine 29 and loses a proton to become Oxygen 28 which then loses four neutrons to become Oxygen 24

Scientists discover the heaviest oxygen isotope

Help learners delve into atomic structure and isotopes with this research context 

Blue strings hanging down with a white salt crystallizing on them

Tackling global demand for lithium one string at a time

Crystalising lithium salts on strings could be the key to supplying the vast volume needed for a net-zero world

People enjoying a sunny day in a river in a valley

The effect of human leisure on water pollution

From cocaine to antihistamines, the surprising mix of chemicals detected after a day out at the river

Latest issue

November 2023
Revitalise your teaching with these classroom tips, ideas and activities

Read it now