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Resource Feature | September 2023 Developing Chemistry Lessons with Student Interest in Mind
The author shares an overview of example chemistry lessons designed to engage low performing students by connecting content with relevant life experiences. Connections to NGSS standards, as well as attention to reading, writing, and mathematics are described as well.
Classroom Commentary | November 2022 Chemical Phenomena in Everyday Life: An Adventure in Writing Across the Curriculum
This article describes a year-long writing project in an upper-level chemistry course that culminates in a Writing Marathon field trip to New York City. The goal of the project was to use student writing about chemical phenomena observed in daily life to make connections to the concepts discussed in class. The author shares that her students enjoyed exploring the city and examining it through their chemistry lens. She found it even more rewarding to watch them apply their knowledge to explain the phenomena around them.
Classroom Commentary | November 2022 Teaching Chimie in Canada

In this article, a Canadian author shares about her experience teaching chemistry in French Immersion, a program aimed at promoting bilingualism in French and English, the country’s two official languages. As she describes, both teaching and learning chemistry en français can be especially difficult, presenting unique challenges. She discusses her experiences as a classroom teacher, extra considerations required to support students in this setting, and the strategies she uses to expand students’ communication skills en français in the context of chimie.
Resource Feature | September 2022 Using the National Historic Chemical Landmarks Lessons in the Chemistry Classroom
This article highlights the National Historic Chemical Landmarks program from the American Chemical Society, and aims to make teachers aware of the growing collection of lesson plans that are centered around select Landmarks for use in the high school chemistry classroom. The lesson plans provide a unique combination of science, history, and literacy while featuring significant scientific achievements and discoveries.
Nuts & Bolts | May 2020 The BOSSO: A Tool for Enhanced Comprehension and Retention
In this article, the authors share about the BOSSO, a highly effective homework assignment that is used specifically with reading assignments and is designed to help students organize their learning.
Classroom Commentary | March 2020 The Importance of Teaching Literacy Strategies in High School Chemistry
In this article, the author discusses rationale for teaching chemistry literacy and offers strategies to be successful in the classroom. Since teaching students how to read and write is the responsibility of all teachers, the author aims to help chemistry teachers focus on these important skills in their content area.
Nuts & Bolts | May 2019 Addressing Scientific Literacy through a Demonstration
A chemical demonstration can be repeatedly utilized in a curricular unit to bolster scientific literacy. A series of classroom activities in a chemistry classroom is presented to illustrate the demonstration's usefulness as a central and ongoing instructional strategy.
Nuts & Bolts | November 2017 TMI (Too Much Information) in Science
In an age when information comes at us at breakneck-speed, how do we help our students deal with science outside the confines of their standard curriculum — and think critically about alternative arguments to questionable research data?
Nuts & Bolts | November 2017 Developing Students’ Chemistry Information Skills
Digital literacy is a key skill for 21^st century learners, and secondary students need to learn to select appropriate sources when conducting a literature search in chemistry. The author describes an experiential activity to provide experience in searching and assessing chemical information. Using a science news article, students learn to formulate and refine a search question in order to obtain a manageable number of relevant references.
Nuts & Bolts | September 2017 Embracing Chemical Literacy
Chemical literacy has been a journey and a struggle — both of which the author has enjoyed. The struggle has ultimately improved her teaching, and in this article, her intention is to share ideas for improving the chemical literacy of students in various ways.
Nuts & Bolts | September 2017 Helping Students Use their English Language Skills
This article describes five assignments and projects that are aimed to help all students improve their English language skills.
Classroom Commentary | May 2017 Read! But Read the Right Things
Contemplating some summer reading? The author shares his thoughts on two books that are rich in details about the progression of science, and also explore more important, fundamental insights about the discipline.
Nuts & Bolts | November 2014 Uncovering Student Thinking through the Science Literacy Framework
You can borrow tricks of the trade from literacy to create dynamic lessons to increase student understanding.
Resource Feature | September 2015 The Chemistry Close Read
High school chemistry teacher Jenelle Ball joins forces with an English teacher and a librarian to successfully implement an English class reading technique in a chemistry class.
Tech Tips | September 2014 ChemMatters: A Wealth of Information
This article describes ChemMatters and highlights several ways to incorporate the magazine into a high school chemistry curriculum. It also features the Teacher's Guide that accompanies the award-winning magazine by ACS.