Chemistry Teacher Resources

Documents, programs, and

I am a huge fan of the the Chemistry Formatter macro found at http://christopherking.name/ChemFormat/index.html. It works seamlessly with MS Word and MS excel.

It is a shame that my district is going to chromebooks for students & teachers. I guess I will just have to use my own equipment.

Items I use in the classroom laboratory.

I have not been paid for any of these opinions or products. These are the items that my students and I use actually use. They are inexpensive, and versatile.

1. I have a scale for each set of lab partners in a classroom of 28 students. Yes: 14 balances. HOW? Jewelers' balances. Specifically, I use "My Weigh Palmscale 8 Advance". You can find them at http://balance.balances.com/scales/11. (no, they do not pay me to say this).

They can run about $ 40-80 each. So for a set of 10, you would be paying about the same for 1 top-loading lab balance.

300g capacity with a 0.01g readability.

Cost of about $40-80

Can be Tared and recalibrated.

Runs on 2 AAA batteries.

When I get the package, I put the deep well plate and the balance out of the students, and I store the rest of the materials. They can be tared, (but the button is small). It can also be recalibrated, and comes with its own 200 gram calibration weight.

The only button I have the students use is the on/off button. I tell them that all of the other buttons are off limits. Most major drawback is that the balance automatically shuts off after 1 minute of inactivity. So the students have to turn the balance back on pretty regularly.

2. Stainless Steel Crucibles. I have seen some for sale in supply catalogs for around $10-15 each with lid. I thought that this was a bit too pricey. So I was wandering through the IKEA kitchen section and found sm

all stainless steel prep bowls. A set of 4 small stainless steel sauce cups cost about $5. We had some sheet iron in the stockroom that I cut into lids with tin snips, and sanded the edges on my bench grinder at home.

As far as the crucibles themselves, they work wonderfully. I have had excellent results with the empirical formula lab of magnesium oxide, the % composition of water in copper(II) sulfate pentahydrate, and even used it to melt lead and zinc.

I can not seem to find them on IKEA's website, otherwise I would link it. A few of my colleagues used stainless steel

Remember to be smart. Do use acids in them.

3. Graduated polypropylene medicine cups. You can find them online in bulk. I think I ordered about 1000 for around $50. They can be used to do approximate volumes to

about 30mL. They work well as weigh boats. I have my students clean them after they use them (Alconox solution and water rinse). If my students used drawers, i would put a set of 10 in their drawer inventory. This way they would be responsible for keeping it clean.

4. Makeshift aluminum crucibles for decomposition of sugar using a hot plate and aluminum foil.