Filming Inorganic Chemistry

As I am prepare to create a seventh grade block on inorganic chemistry, I feel excited about all that I and the students learn in this block. Have you ever wondered what mysteries lay behind the creation of this elemental world we perceive with senses? We take it for granted every day – lighting the stove, breathing the air, the ground underneath our house – but do we truly understand what matter is? Ultimately, the answer is something akin to how precipitate forms at the bottom of at jar or beaker of saltwater when the water evaporates. Taken a step further and how this relates to the human being is an astounding question to contemplate when you consider our cosmic origins.

I shall not elaborate on that now. For the time being, we’ll keep to the first most important questions of the matter (pun intended) such as combustion and how it happens, the lime cycle, salts/acids/bases, and more. I’m tickled to share these things with students through practical experimentation, much of which should be replicable at home.

Why is this topic so important for middle schoolers? If you remember back to your own budding adolescence, you may have noted its polar nature – mood swings, increased individuality yet self-absorption, new mastery of skills yet insecurity, and so on. The wild nature of a number of the experiments combined with the need for rigorous thinking helps at this time of life. Students may be impressed by the dramatic displays of combustion, for example, while at the same time their intensifying feeling like will be balanced by the need for intellectual objectivity – “cool” headedness.

Anyhow! The block should be ready by late summer. Ciao for now!

-Nicholas