Education in Chemistry - Classroom articles

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

2023-09-07T08:15:00+01:00

Everything you need to help your students master transition metal complexes

A ball rolling down a slope

Everything you need to teach energetics at 14–16

2023-08-01T07:00:00+01:00

Use these ideas to help students understand the world of energetics, enthalpy and equilibrium

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

2023-07-06T08:00:00+01:00

Use these tips to help your students calculate redox reactions and create electrochemical cells

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

2023-08-07T09:30:00+01:00

Use this demonstration to reinforce the differences between states of matter with your 11–14 learners

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

Creating a supersaturated gas evolving oscillator

2023-06-05T09:26:00+01:00

Use this fizzy practical for a kinetic and thermodynamic showdown in class

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

2023-03-27T09:14:00+01:00

Layer intermolecular interactions into your practical lessons with these chromatic experiments

A cartoon of a school student in a school lab as a platform video game with chemistry skills to collect as they progress through the level

Successful strategies for sequencing knowledge

2023-09-11T09:00:00+01:00By ,

Discover how to effectively develop your students’ knowledge and skills by sequencing practical activities

A diagram showing the increasing strength of force for different kinds of bonding - London dispersion forces, dipole-dipole interactions, hydrogen bonds and ionic bonding

Teaching the bonding spectrum

2023-09-04T06:52:00+01:00By

Everything you need to help your post-16 grasp the realities of bonding, electronegativity and intermolecular forces

A cartoon of a science teacher allowing students to pick the equipment to use for a chemistry practical

Why it’s important to encourage student decision-making in practicals

2023-07-17T08:30:00+01:00By ,

Improve student engagement, motivation and behaviour by giving them more choice

Three diagrams for the structure of metal atoms showing the lattice, the movement of electrons and how alloys are harder than pure metals because the different sized atoms disrupts the regular layers

How to teach metallic bonding

2023-06-19T07:34:00+01:00By

From properties to structures, everything you need to help your 14–16 students grasp metals and alloys

Textbooks in a school backpack

Do textbooks need a rewrite?

2023-09-21T07:10:00+01:00

Discover why not all chemistry textbooks are created equal

Tiny people around an oversized chemistry experiment where an electric spark is going off in a gas syringe.

Linking energy, structure and reactivity

2023-08-15T09:20:00+01:00

Discover how students reason about energy and chemical structure – and how to boost their understanding

A cartoon of a page flipping between students writing in a classroom and a boy watching a video at home

What’s best: flipped or in-class learning?

2023-07-13T06:30:00+01:00

Discover how one approach can boost student learning and engagement

Models of different types of chemical bonding including diamond and salt on a table in a classroom. Behind a teacher speaks to the high school students.

Boost student understanding of chemical bonding

2023-06-13T08:55:00+01:00

Discover how important pedagogical content knowledge is in teaching this challenging topic

A question mark made up of brightly coloured cogs

Conceptual peer-to-peer questioning improves learning

2023-05-18T08:15:00+01:00

Get the cogs turning for successful learning by encouraging the right kind of student interactions

Hands labeling the nucleophiles and electrophiles on a chemical equation between benzene and bromine

How to help students identify electrophiles and nucleophiles

2023-04-18T07:45:00+01:00

Use evidence-based research and teaching tips to solidify understanding of reaction mechanisms