Thursday, December 16, 2010

Chemistry: Substances, Mixtures and Solubility

Here is my last chemistry PowerPoint!

http://www.scribd.com/doc/45470754

This PowerPoint covers the following topics:

- Substances and compounds
- Mixtures
- Solutions
- Solubility
- Acids and Bases

I hope you have found these PowerPoints helpful! Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns!

Just an FYI, I had my students fill in notesheets while following the PowerPoints (I gave them 3 separate packets to correlate with each PowerPoint)

Proper Internet Research

As we all know, the Internet is taking over our students lives! Whether students are using the computer in the classroom or at home, it is important that they know how to use it properly.

I did a lesson the other day on how to properly search the Internet. It is very difficult to know what is a reliable resource and what is not.

Here is what I did!

I handed out an article on Dihydrogen Monoxide. You can get the article from the website http://dhmo.org. This article describes this chemical DHMO and how it is extremely hazardous to us, and it is running rampant throughout the world.
I asked the students to write an article which addresses:
1. What is DHMO?
2. What can it do to our bodies?
3. Where can we find DHMO?
4. Who uses DHMO and what do you think we should do about this situation?
After they wrote the article, I broke the news to the students (I showed a video, but you can simply just tell your students) that DHMO is really just WATER!!
They were shocked!!
I asked them why they thought I had them take the time to write an article that wasn't really true? Eventually through a class discussion we got to the point that you cannot trust everything you read on the Internet. Sometimes a google search will not give you the information you really need.
This is a valuable lesson for these students, as they rely so heavily on the Internet. I think it was a great wake up call!

Chemistry: States of Matter

As promised, I am paying it forward and posting some more PowerPoints!

Here is my PowerPoint I used to teach my 7th grade students States of Matter :

http://www.scribd.com/doc/45420381/States-of-Matter

This PowerPoint includes information on:
- Solids
-Liquids
- Gases
- Physical Change
- Phase Change (evaporation, condensation, freezing, ,melting, sublimation)

There are a lot of pictures throughout the PowerPoint which should be helpful if you teach CTT or ESL!

I also recommend showing a video through http://unitedstreaming.com or http://brainpop.com.
(you need a login for these websites, if you do not have one, ask your principal if your school subscribes)

It is always helpful for the students to see these concepts presented in a video for any clarification purposes.

Chemistry: Properties of Matter

As a teacher I am always looking for different resources on the internet. I figured it would only be right to pay it forward and share resources from my classroom.

Right now I am in the middle of a chemistry unit in my 7th grade classroom. I divided the unit into three sections:

1. Properties of Matter
2. States of Matter
3. Mixtures, Solutions, and Solubility

Today I am going to share my properties of matter powerpoint with you. This power point covers the structure of an atom, elements, and the periodic table. Just follow this link and it will lead you to my powerpoint! http://www.scribd.com/full/45419601?access_key=key-1fpmrtnbemu66nevyust

I hope you find it useful!

Brainpopjr!

As I am sure many of you know, http://www.brainpop.com/ is a website that explains many different concepts (science, as well as all other subjects). The great thing about this website is that the two cartoon characters (Tim and Moby) that explain all the concepts are funny, yet very accurate at the same time. The students really seem to enjoy every video that I play for my class, while learning at the same time!

What many of you may not know, is that there is also a http://www.brainpopjr.com/! As an ESL teacher, I realize that some of the words and concepts on brainpop.com can be a little challenging for my students. Having a video which highlights major concepts by showing the words, pictures and actually speaking about a certain concept is an excellent resource for my ESL students, but at times can be too advanced. Brainpopjr is a site that I can use to explain many of the same concepts (there are not as many videos on this website as on brainpop.com) but in a less advanced, lower level, which is exactly what I need for my ESL students!