Grade 11 University Chemistry

Students are informed of the final assessments on the first day of class. In this course, they have three possible choices and will perform two of them: a calculation problem set, a science fair, and a NOS portfolio. The science fair is open-ended student choice, but they must relate it to the curriculum and is an investigation. The NOS portfolio follows the same format as the grade 9 portfolio above, in terms of having three sections and requiring that students describe five points per section about how science works and provide evidence from their course activities. The major assignments in this course that I suggested students could reflect on for the NOS portfolio final were:

• • • A history of atomic structure where students choose from an extensive list of atomic structure discoveries/ inventions/ concepts and look at three scientists involved in it, then focus on one for the assignment. Students research the scientist’s socioeconomic background, what their initial research was, how those may have affected their later experiment, and whether or not the experimental conclusions are still valid today. (Historical Case Study)

    • Personal Action Plan, where students choose an issue described in the media related to dissolved substances and research government policies and societal attitudes to that issue. They then create a Personal Action Plan with reasonable goals and actions that they can take immediately to make the situation better. (Contemporary Case Study)

    • A history of gas theory where students choose from an extensive list of gaseous substance discoveries/ inventions/ concepts and look at three scientists involved in it, then focus on one for the assignment. Students research the scientist’s socioeconomic background, what their initial research was, how those may have affected their later experiment, and whether or not the experimental conclusions are still valid today. (Historical Case Study)

    • When I found that most students had not done a lab in junior secondary science, I decided that labs would not count for marks, just for learning. They still had labs to do, often to make connections between abstract curricular concepts and hands on activities. Those labs included determining the molecular formula of a hydrate, determining the concentration of a solution based on serial dilution, determining the identity of unknown ionic solids based on flame tests, and determining the molecular formula of a gas. They also had to learn and demonstrate pipet and burette skills (for marks) and started off the course by researching and creating a safety video explaining safe use of equipment from a list so that their classmates could use it (also for marks). (Investigations)