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Blog posts

Design experiments with esters 24 October 2013

Teachers are always looking for suitable topics to give their students for design experiments. One common starting point is “Investigate an aspect of esterification”. This is actually given as an... more

CNT computers 15 October 2013

The new chemistry curriculum for first examinations in 2016 will be released within the next two or three months. We already know that there will be four options and that one of them is called ‘Materials’.... more

The beauty molecule 21 August 2013

I guess everyone has seen TV adverts where a particular product contains a fancy sounding special chemical and the treatment it provides has been ‘clinically proven’ to work. One that caught my eye... more

Two-dimensional chromatography 20 July 2013

When teaching paper or thin-layer chromatography for the current Options A or B many teachers include the technique of rotating the paper or glass slide 90o and performing the chromatography again with... more

Fracking 9 July 2013

One of the reasons why the US appears to be emerging from the credit crunch earlier than the rest of the world is that for the past ten years it has benefited from a boom in cheap energy. This has come... more

Super Li-ion batteries 28 June 2013

The current IB chemistry syllabus includes the chemistry of buckminsterfullerene and use of nanotechnology. In keeping with recent developments in chemistry, the new programme for teaching from September... more

Images of chemical bonds 31 May 2013

Atoms can be ‘seen’ using scanning tunnelling microsopy now for the first time chemical bonds can also be ‘seen’. A team from Berkley University in Califonia have for the first time captured... more

Atmospheric CO2 passes 400 ppm 12 May 2013

Probably all teachers covering Option E: Environmental chemistry will refer their students to the graphs produced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii.... more

IB Chemistry teacher in the news 26 March 2013

Congratulations to Richard Thornley who has had an article published about his innovative teaching methods published in the Guardian Newspaper. Richard is an IB Chemistry teacher at the United Nations... more

Destroying your old hard drive 2 March 2013

I’ve just replaced my laptop and was faced with the prospect of how to destroy the hard drive in my old laptop before taking it to the civic amenity site (rubbish dump) for recycling. Sadly this does... more