This site provides annotated Web links to instructional materials and other resources of interest to Chemistry teachers and course designers. The links are carefully selected to represent what this author considers to be the most useful and exemplary Web-accessible resources that others can draw upon for ideas and materials.mid 2008
Concept Development Studies in Chemistry is an on-line textbook for an Introductory General Chemistry course by John S. Hutchinson of Rice U. Each module develops a central concept in Chemistry from experimental observations and inductive reasoning. This is part of the Connexions collection which is licensed under Creative Commons. Unfortunately, authors are constrained to a format that lacks almost all qualities of good visual design.
Structures of Simple Inorganic Solids - This site by S.J. Heyes of Oxford offers an exceptionally complete coverage of elementary crystallography and the representation of crystal structures. Lots of good illustrations.
Starting points for teaching - This Carleton U (Ontario) site is oriented toward teaching geoscience, but it provides a wealth of well-organized suggestions that should be of interest to anyone setting out to teach an entry-level course in the natural sciences.
Chemistry Times - a compilation of recent news items relating to discoveries in Chemistry.
Linus Pauling Lectures - This Oregon State U. site has videos of several NSF-sponsored lectures by Pauling.
Human Thermodynamics Wiki - Yes, this sounds a little fringey, but there is much interesting stuff here, such as a history of the concept of the "human molecule".
This Bad Chemistry page by Kevin Lehmann of U. Virginia takes a poke at the hydrophobic effect, the common explanation for how ice skating works, and the nature of ionic solutions.
early 2008
Quantum Tutor Chemistry Tutorials is a set of tutorials covering different aspects of beginning chemistry. It offers a variety of problem quizzes organized in a framework that allows students to explore and ask questions about specific compounds or topics. Students can retain records of their interactions with the program, and additional problems relevant to a specific curriculum can be added. The materials can be accessed on-line by annual subscription. An impressive on-line demo is available at this site.
Virtual ChemLab is a set of sophisticated and realistic simulations for high school, freshman, and sophomore level chemistry classes. It is being developed at Brigham Young University.
Art, Artifacts, Archives & Photos - This Chemical Heritage Foundation site offers a searchable database of items in CHF’s collections. It contains sections on Fine Art (ranging from alchemy through the 19th century), Instruments and Artifacts, Photographs.
MIT Kitchen Chemistry course - This course, given in 2006 by Patricia Christie, was designed to be an experimental and hands-on approach to applied chemistry (as seen in cooking). The materials are available by download.
(a new addition to the flim-flam file:) Institute of Human Thermodynamics - stuff such as: "Human chemistry is the study of reactions between individuals who are viewed as chemical species and with the energy, entropy, and work that quantify these processes. In modern human chemistry, people are viewed as chemical species, or specifically “human molecules” (a term coined by Charles Galton Darwin), A or B, and processes such as marriage or divorce are viewed as chemical reactions between individuals..."
Science songs - this Haverford College Physics site has links to a large number of online recordings.
Digital Chem1a Study: Costs, Culture, and Complexity: An Analysis of Technology Enhancements in a Large Lecture Course at UC Berkeley. As is usually the case with even the richest institutions, this project seemed to be dependent on external support from NSF and other sources.
Note: earlier "recent additions" can be found here.
"Don't try this at home" - a 2006 article from Wired Magazine that shows how suppliers of chemicals to scientific amateurs are being hounded out of business by U.S. terrorist-paranoia. See also {this page} from one of the afflicted companies.
Math Wars! - an article that appeared in Education World. 'The TIMSS studies have incited a hot debate centered on the way in which mathematics is being taught in many classrooms in this country. Is a traditional approach better than a "whole math" approach? Which side will win out in America's "Math Wars"?'
Many Going to College Are Not Ready, Report Says (Tamar Lewin, NY Times August 2005) Only about half of this year's high school graduates have the reading skills they need to succeed in college, and even fewer are prepared for college-level science and math courses, according to a yearly report from ACT,
Beyond Appearances: Students’ misconceptions about basic chemical ideas. This is an extensive and carefully done report by Vanessa Barker for the Royal Society of Chemistry. It focusses on the 1 12.06.2008 te its length (90 pages), teachers and course designers can quickly find the material pertinent to a given topic, such as changes of state, stoichiometry, equilibrium, etc. This excellent resource can be downloaded as a PDF document.
Some other similar reports are listed on RSC's Chemical Misconceptions page
National Center for Case Studies Teaching in Science provides links to information, examples, workshops and conferences.
{Science and ...} - A ChemistryCoach site containing many links to ethics, gender, art, literature, poetry, culture, race, politics, religion, etc. (Link is to last archived update, 4/2007.)
The Status of High School Chemistry Teaching is one of a series of reports based on data from the 2000 National Survey of Science and Mathematics Education, a survey of 5,765 science and mathematics teachers in schools across the United States. Areas addressed include: teacher backgrounds and beliefs, needs for and participation in professional development, course offerings, instructional objectives and activities, and instructional resources. The report itself can be downloaded as a PDF document.
General
Chemistry Trivia Quizzes - this site provides access to a variety of quizzes from different sources.
chemistry.org Joke-a-Rama - guaranteed by the American Chemical Society to make you laugh.
Chemistry jokes - this well-organized collection is part of a more general science humor site.
Science cartoons - a collection of Stan Eale's work (British!) - (unfortunately disappeared in 2006.)
Sidney Harris Chemistry Cartoons (Science Cartoons Plus) - a showcase of this well-known science cartoonist's work.
The Science Trivia site has a special section devoted to Chemistry topics.
{Scientists at work cartoons} - a nice collection, but an almost unreadable color combination on the home page. (Last archive from Feb 2007)
Comic book periodic table - "... and now for something completely different." This popular classic is by John Selegue and James Holler of the University of Kentucky.
"Never mix alkali metals with water" - "not your usual boring science video" from Braniac Science Abuse (Movie; 3 min 16 sec)
Thermite - used to destroy an old car, and to warm liquid nitrogen (U-Tube video) ****
Kelvin is Lord!! All praise Lord Kelvin! A spoof cult site for the thermodynamically inclined.
Molecules with silly or unusual (or suggestive) names - an amusing and informative site by Paul May of Bristol U. (UK) that will likely have special appeal to teen males of all ages.
Science humor WebRing - some of it is pretty corny, but it's more fun than balancing redox equations.
The story of Schroedinger's cat (an epic poem) by Cecil Adams
10 Ways To Get Thrown Out Of Chemistry Lab (some a bit on the sick side)
The Table of Condiments that Periodically Go Bad — taking the periodic table a bit too far!
What students say - what professors hear - this bit of wisdom was found on the Marshall U. (WV) site.
Dangers of Dihydrogen monoxide: the National Exposure Warning Center's Dihydrogen Monoxide Research Division.
Games and activities
Sciences Jeopardy! Games - this U Pittsburgh site covers general, organic, analytical and biochemistry.
ChemBalancer and Element Quiz - four games you can play online.
Give Them Money: The Boltzmann Game, a Classroom or Laboratory Activity Modeling Entropy Changes and the Distribution of Energy in Chemical Systems. PDF or Zip download of printed material including Instructor Notes.
A large collection of Chemistry drills, some in the form of arcade games, can be found at the {DigitalGraphics site}. These are Windows-only, and many are shareware. (Last archive 2/2006)
Science-related songs
The MASSIVE database contains information on over 1700 science and math songs, many available as MP3 downloads. Another large collection can be found at Science song resources — part of the "Dr. Chordate" collection. Some more specialized sites:
- PhysicsSong.org features everything from songs about Snell's law, to unreleased 1952 Tom Lehrer recordings, and songs once sung by the Cavendish Society in the early 1900's.
- Science songs - this Haverford College Physics site has links to a large number of online recordings.
- The Science Songwriters' Association maintains a listing of its members' pages
- This site provides MP3's of some old William Stirrat/Lou Singer science songs from the 1950's
- Norm Walker's Time-tested Tales CD has an amusing song about Ohm's law in the form of a Western shoot-'em-up story
- The Artichoke Band is an LA-based group that has released its first CD, "26 Scientists"
Tom Lehrer's "The Elements" song - animated sing-along version, and other Tom Lehrer links for nostalgic boomers.
Not all science songs are for the kiddies; {metabolic Songs} (with text and audio music tracks) intended to help biochem students keep track of all those metabolic pathways. (Paul Price, UCSD) Sample: Glucose, by hexokinase is turned to G6P / (You might use glucokinase, you must use ATP)
Chemistry Department Web Sites - this excellent collection covering U.S. 4-year colleges is maintained by Chuck Huber at UCSD. For non-US sites, see Michael Barker's extensive list .
ChemFinder - A free service from Cambridge Software that allows you to search for a chemical name, CAS Number, molecular formula or molar mass.
Minerals - an extensive, easily-searched database of mineral names, formulas, and locations from this commercial site. See also this other listing of sites dealing with mineralogy.
Nobel Prizes in Chemistry - from the official Nobel Society site (with links to photos and biographies); Wikipedia's list is more concise and informative. Another consise list with pictures, but not up-to-date.
Units, measures and conversions dictionary - provides a summary of most of the units of measurement to be found in use around the world today (and a few of historical interest), together with the appropriate conversion factors needed to change them into a 'standard' unit of the SI.
Web sites of U.S. public schools, community colleges, 4-year colleges and universities.
Elements - ever wonder which of the less-common ones you can buy, and in what form? This commercial page from American Elements provides a quick reference.
Chemistry: A project of the American Chemical Society - this review by Jeffey Kovic, entitled "A new way to learn Chemistry", appeared in the July 19, 2004 C&EN.
{CTI Web Reviews} - selected reviews of Web sites devoted to various areas of Chemistry. (Link is to April 2007 archive.)
"Hal's Picks of the Month" reviews books and recent articles for teachers of chemistry and related sciences.
Uncle Tungsten - this review of Oliver Sack's evocative recollection of his early fascination with Chemistry appeared in the New York Times in November 2001.
A matter of degrees: What Temperature Reveals About the Past and Future of Our Species, Planet, and Universe. By Gino Segrè. (NYT, 2002)
General Chemistry Online! - an interactive guide to college chemistry, maintained by Fred Senese of Frostberg State University (MD). A well-organized wealth of material, including collections of notes and guides for introductory General Chemistry, skills checklists and online self-grading examinations, and a Q&A column.
General Chemistry: starting points for students is a carefully-made selection of the best links for students enrolled in General Chemistry courses at the HS, AP, and college levels. Instructors who have Web pages for their own courses are invited to link to this site, or they may use it as a basis for building their own.
The ChemCollective "is a collection of virtual labs, scenario-based learning activities, and concepts tests which can be incorporated into a variety of teaching approaches as pre-labs, alternatives to textbook homework, and in-class activities for individuals or teams. It is organized by a group of faculty and staff at Carnegie Mellon University for college and high school teachers who are interested in using, assessing, and/or creating engaging online activities for chemistry education."
Elemental discoveries A monthly 'zine featuring chemistry topics and reviews.
The Alchemy virtual library An extensive collection of texts, graphic images and book references assembled by Adam McLean. See also this nicely-done list of Elemental Alchemy Symbols.
(See also the separate Web page on Course Tools)
The MICROSOC Computer Assisted Testing Files - This question bank was originally developed in the 1960-70s at Calif. State U - Dominguez Hills. It contains thousands of items, is in the public domain, but needs reformating to be really useful to teachers.
BestChoice (Sheila Woodgate, University of Aukland, NZ) provides interactive quizzes on a large variety of General Chemistry topics. A hierarchical menu offers quick access to each section which contains one or more review screens and a large number of questions selected through a pull-down menu; approximately 2000 screens are presently available. Free registration is currently available to non-UA users. Rather browser-sensitive; works well with IE on Windows/Mac.
Online Quiz from Alwyn Botha covering elementary General Chemistry with special emphasis on the periodic table.
CSUDH Electronic Homework system is an elaboration of an earlier Web-based exercise system developed by George Wiger at California State U.- Dominguez Hills. An "export" version is available for installation on local Unix/Linux systems, or it can be run from CSUDH's system.
Chemistry Online Homework System developed by Glen Lo and colleagues at Nicholls State U (LA). Visitors can try out the system by logging in to courses created by the developers using the alias<username>PRACTICE. You can also get a teacher's perspective by logging in to the "Teacher's Tools" as Guest (password=Guest). The site (which was updated in 2000) now covers about 90 percent of General Chemistry and substantial portions of quantitative analysis and P. chem.
Chemistry homework help - this compilation of sites, some free, some pay-per-answer, is the last resort for the desperate or the lazy.
> ConcepTest Collection A collection of downloadable quiz questions. They are intended mainly for presentation in lecture or tutorial classes. Students vote on the possible answers, then try to persuade their neighbors in the lecture room that they are correct, and finally vote again. This form of peer instruction is often an effective pedagogical method, and it also provides the instructor with on-line feedback as to how well the class is following the lecture.
> Carl David of the University of Connecticut developed a collection of General Chemistry {Practice exams and problems for Physical Chemistry}. The latest (2006) version is available in this archive.
ChemSkill Builder is a commercially-available suite of PC-based lessons for general-, prep- and organic chemistry designed to be used as electronic homework. Scores earned through the use of CSB are stored on a student disk for later addition to a course file. Electronic Homework Systems
>{How to deal with ill-posed questions} - this anonymous page has some useful advice for teachers and students. (≤ 2006)
WebAssign is a homework delivery service that provides questions taken directly from major textbooks (about 30 Chemistry texts are covered) and also allows instructors to edit or create their own questions, which may involve variables and randomizing.
We_Learn is a Web-based homework distribution and grading system for Chemistry courses. The questions are taken from a very large database (to which new items can be added) and are assigned through protocols based on either specific topics, or distributed over a variety of topics as would be appropriate for a practice examination.
Examples of institutional homework systems
Contact the developer/administrator for information about the availability of these systems to outside institutions.
- Chemistry Online Homework System developed by Glenn Lo and Michael Janvsa of Nichols State U (LA).
- Homework Service - U Texas Austin
Bubbles in Beer - Eric Maiken shows how a freshly poured glass of beer (or Champagne) illustrates some general physical properties of bubbles.
The Chemistry of autumn colors - an informative page from the Shakhashiri/U. Wisconsin Science is Fun site.
The Chemistry of Tea - mainly about polyphenols
How to boil an egg - all about eggs and the science of hard-boiling them by Charles Williams (U Exeter, UK)
Why is mercury a liquid at STP? - a brief discussion about electrons at relativistic velocities.
Glossary of archaic chemical terms - from C. Giunta's excellent collection of history-of-chem materials.
Stain removal guide - How to remove just about every kind of stain you can think of.
Chemistry of Cleaning - a nice overview of the nature of "dirt" and the agents used to get rid of it. See also this Soap and Detergent Association site.
{The Happy Drinking Bird} - all about the various subspecies of "dippy birds", their history, and how they work. (Link is to last archived copy 7/2007)
Skunk Chemistry - what's the big stink about? This rather technical article tells the story of how we have come to know what we know.
What is Chemistry good for? A thoughtful answer to a common question in terms of the stoichiometry of carpets - from Illinois U - Purdue U - Indianapolis.
What's in a modern laundry detergent? Surfactants, builders, flllers, brightening agents to attract consumer dollars.
Why Did My Skin Turn Green? How to keep jewelry from discoloring your skin.
Why is water blue? What causes the blue color that sometimes appears in snow and ice? These are just two of the more interesting pages at the Webexhibits Causes of Color site.
Food Science Resources - additional material intended for teachers who wish to incorporate food science into their courses.
Bad Chemistry
This Bad Chemistry page by Kevin Lehmann of U. Virginia takes a poke at the hydrophobic effect, the common explanation for how ice skating works, and the nature of ionic solutions.
Ratings and reviews
TextRev is a free tool for instructors who wish to generate a customized Web-based survey for their course. The survey provides picture of how much time students spend each week using the textbook, CD-ROM, website, solution manual, etc. It will also inform you of how helpful students find particular features of the text, e.g., images, sample problems, real-world examples. The site also post aggregative reviews of selected texts.
Catalogs and lists
Chemical Education Resources Shelf Formerly known as Chemistry Textbooks in Print, this excellent site i - St. Louis. "Hal's Picks of the Month" reviews books and recent articles for teachers of chemistry and related sciences. "Journals for Chemical Educators" contains information about all those journals you should be reading, and hyperlinks to many of the publishers. "References for Chemistry Teachers" is found in the Textbook menu with the other books, even though they aren't textbooks (except for some really weird courses). Resource Shelf is able to search the listing of textbooks for author's names, textbook titles, or publishers. The search utility is found at the bottom of the Index pages.
Publishers' catalogs on-line Compiled by Peter Scott.
Textbook Publishers This is the World-Wide Web Virtual Library Publishers list.
Some publisher sites
Free Organic Chemistry textbook - Individual chapters of Organic Chemistry by Daley & Daley can be downloaded as pdf files.
Houghton-Mifflin Chemistry Instructor's page - info about their products.
McGraw-Hill has stuff to support Chang's textbook and offers some other multimedia.
Software (non-instructional)
KnowItAll® Academic Edition, free for students and teachers, includes tools for structure-drawing, spectral display and analysis, lab report generation, and molecule display.
Visual media
Chemistry Video Consortium maintains a regularly updated list of more than 1000 films, VHS tapes, laser discs, CD ROMs and DVDs. This UK effort is associated with the Royal Society of Chemistry. There are separate sections for viewers over and under age 16.
Science Online Access to Science Magazine and AAAS pages
American Chemical Society
ChemCenter Home Page - ACS main resource site, including ACS Journals on the Web and STN.
> ACS Division of Chemical Education Information about the CHED division, divisional resources, and information of interest to chemistry educators and students.
The Computers in Chemical Education Newsletter is an online publication, edited by Brian Pankuch, containing articles describing a wide variety of topics relating to the use of software and Web-based materials in instruction. The Fall 2005 edition is now available; earlier issues can be accessed through the archives link at that site.
CHEMED-L mailing list CHEMED-L is an Internet mailing list whose purpose is to provide a forum for discussion of matters of interest to chemical educators at all levels. Archives are available at this site.
Chauttauqua short courses for college Chemistry teachers is an NSF-sponsored program for faculty development. Several courses, on varied topics, are offered every summer.
The Chemical Educator An independent journal distributed via the Internet.
Chemical Heritage Foundation The Chemical Heritage Foundation is attempting to provide a comprehensive list of resources on the history of chemistry available through World Wide Web, as well as access to CHF's collections.
Clemson University web site Clemson University web site. Information on the ACS Examinations Institute.
IUPAC Committee on Teaching Chemistry home page
HYLE A Web-based international journal dedicated to all philosophical aspects of chemistry. Many useful links to conferences, courses, journal articles, and a bibliography with more than 1500 titles.
Journal of Chemical Education
- Home Page - also J. ChemEd Software
- Journal of Chemical Education Index An on-line, searchable index to this important resource.
National Science Teachers Association - the NSTA home page, > Journal of College Science Teaching
Scientific American This site contains Web-viewable and hyperlinked versions of selected recent articles. Whatever happened to the useful cumulative indices of the past?
