Methods
I strongly believe in a hands-on approach to learning. While I will be focusing mostly on the scientific concepts, there are obviously many mathematic and social implications that could be explored. I want my students to learn mostly through laboratory and case studies. Many of the energy and materials balances can be explored using case studies, possibly partnered with a mathematics teacher. The amount of land and economic issues would be a better fit for social studies, but would not be entirely beyond a science case study. After and between doing the case studies, I want my students to be doing laboratory experiments. Lots of experiments. Pre-lab questions are incredibly important as they help make sure the students are in the right frame of mind as they do the experiments. While doing the laboratory reports I will initially have very leading questions, but as the course progresses I hope my students will be able to deal with more open-ended questions. The leading questions are checks to make sure that things like chemical bonds, electron interactions, etc… are understood, and the free-response and open-ended questions will both help as a dipstick into their understanding of the concepts and hopefully spark some further connections within the students' minds. For example I remember single replacement and combustion reactions from the amount of H 2 as a student I made and burned from Zn and HCl. Doing experiments with pre-laboratory questions and laboratory reports is much more effective making sure students learn and retain information than simple chalk and talk. And whenever experiments are not an option, case studies are the next best option.
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