An engineer wearing safety gear in an industrial setting interacts with a futuristic screen

Skills to succeed in the future chemical sciences workforce

2025-01-13T06:16:00+00:00By

What do learners need to master to thrive in the chemical sciences?

Education in Chemistry

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Ideas

A hand take a box of a dozen fresh eggs from a supermarket shelf

Ways to teach the mole at 14–16

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Use these four ideas to effectively teach and contextualise this crucial chemistry unit

A hand writing

Make worked examples count in quantitative chemistry

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Four teacher-tested approaches to encourage self-explanation and build learners’ confidence, engagement and understanding

Chameleons climbing in front of a computer screen with different question words

How to help students master decoding command words

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Use these three strategies to prepare your 14–16 learners for exam success

Exciting demos

A dish with a mottled pattern of a milky cream liquid in a clear brown liquid

Experiment with surface tension and curious convection currents

A glass dish with sweets around the edge whose colours have bled into the middle

Dissolve coloured sweets to create a rainbow

A conical flask of yellow liquid bubbles with a heavy white smoke

Demonstrations with dry ice

A hand using scissor-handle tweezers to hold a piece of paper that is on fire but not burning

Non-burning paper: investigate the fire triangle and conditions for combustion

A glass beaker pouring liquid uphill into another

Illustrate polymer properties with a self-siphoning solution

  • Experiment with surface tension and curious convection currents

  • Dissolve coloured sweets to create a rainbow

  • Demonstrations with dry ice

  • Non-burning paper: investigate the fire triangle and conditions for combustion

  • Illustrate polymer properties with a self-siphoning solution

Evidence-based teaching

Cartoon of students in a lab

Celebrate curiosity, creativity and co-operation in your chemistry lessons

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They’re key to learners identifying positively with chemistry and achieving success

Students discussing global issues

Improve assessment accessibility for multilingual learners

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Teaching tips to help you tackle four key language challenges EAL learners face in chemistry

The lapel of a white lab coat with a sunflower badge and a rainbow badges

Foster more diverse involvement in all science lessons

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Understand the challenges faced by students with concealable or hidden characteristics to engage all your learners in classroom research

Opinion

A hand writing chemistry equations with a ball point pen

Should we retain the skill of handwriting?

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Discover why one teacher thinks writing by hand is vital for science learners

An exercise book with three gold stars and a "great work well done" written in red pen

Does rewarding good behaviour deserve a gold star?

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Using commendations to encourage positive behaviour can have an impact beyond the chemistry classroom

A name badge showing people of different ages and genders

What should learners call their teachers?

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Step into a classroom and you’ll often hear Miss, Madam and Sir. But is it time for change?

How to teach ...

A series of diagrams showing how a balloon traps gas from a chemical reaction and the weight of the reactants is the same as the weight of the products

Teaching conservation of mass at 14–16

A coloured X-ray of a fridge showing the food and drinks inside and the cooling mechanism at the back

How to teach Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution curves at post-16

The molecular structures of diamond, graphite, graphene, fullerene and a nanotube

How to teach structure and bonding of carbon at 14–16

A woman wearing a warm coat outside and holding a chemical hand warmer

Teaching enthalpy cycles at post-16

A 2d diagram showing a lattice of positively charged particles in a sea of free electrons

Teaching structure and bonding in metals at 14–16

  • Teaching conservation of mass at 14–16

  • How to teach Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution curves at post-16

  • How to teach structure and bonding of carbon at 14–16

  • Teaching enthalpy cycles at post-16

  • Teaching structure and bonding in metals at 14–16

News & analysis

A bright yellow powder in a closed glass jar in front of a university clock tower

Porous polymer promises to combat climate crisis

This cutting-edge research is the perfect context for teaching your 14–16 learners about tackling climate change

A tattoo artist using blue ink

Scientists find hazardous pigments in tattoo ink

Use this science research context when studying instrumental methods with your 14–16 learners

Signs for a hydrogen-powered bus refuelling station in Iceland

New material could help power the hydrogen economy

Cryogenic cooling enables record hydrogen storage in new material

Dinosaurs watch a meteor hit the Earth

Research reveals the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs

Isotopes help to identify the type of asteroid responsible for the catastrophic event that made dinosaurs extinct

Latest issue

January 2025
Start the year off with engaging contexts, scientific language tips and CPD articles

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