Density - Introducing a Free Online Resource for Middle School Chemistry

Details

Title: Density - Introducing a Free Online Resource for Middle School Chemistry
Target grades: 5-8
Date: Thursday, October 4, 2012
Time: 6:30-8:00 p.m. Eastern Time
Note: The formal program will now begin at 6:30. Training for new users will start at 6:15.
Presenter: James Kessler

This web seminar introduces teachers to the free online middle school chemistry resource, middleschoolchemistry.com from the American Chemical Society. During this web seminar on density, presenters will demonstrate activities and animations from the resource and discuss with participating teachers how the activities and animations can be used with students in the classroom. All of the activities in middleschoolchemistry.com are safe and use inexpensive commonly available materials.

The web seminar has three main goals:

1. Introduce teachers to the fully-developed guided-inquiry lessons and supporting multimedia in middleschoolchemistry.com,
2. Help teachers practice explaining, on the molecular level, the density phenomena students will observe in the activities,
3. Highlight the alignment of the lessons and approach in middleschoolchemistry.com with the new Frameworks for K-12 Science Education for middle school.

This web seminar is the third in a series of six which cover each of the six chapters in middleschoolchemistry.com.

1. Matter – Solids, Liquids, and Gases (Archived)
2. Changes of State (Archived)
3. Density
4. The Periodic Table and Bonding
5. The Water Molecule and Dissolving
6. Chemical Change

The activities in this Chapter 3 web seminar build on a basic understanding of the particle nature of solids and liquids from Chapters 1 and 2 and focus on basic questions about density:

1. How do you find the density of an object, and can differences in density be explained on the molecular level?
2. What does density have to do with sinking and floating?
3. How does temperature affect density?

The web seminar features activities, animations, and molecular model drawings to investigate and help answer these questions at the level of atoms and molecules so that students understand the concept of density in a deeper way.