© Division of Chemical Education  • www.JCE.DivCHED.org  •  Vol. 86 No. 1 January 2009  •  Journal of Chemical Education 13

Chemical Education Today

Especially for High School Teachersby Erica K. Jacobsen

A Real Rock Star?

Secondary School Featured Articles◭ The Changing Landscape of Teaching High School

Chemistry by Kristin D. Collins and Terri Taylor, p 21.

◭ An Esterification Kinetics Experiment That Relies on the Sense of Smell by Deborah C. Bromfield-Lee and Maria T. Oliver-Hoyo, p 82.

Did I ever mention I was in a rock band? We didn’t write our own music, but had a lot of fun performing other artists’ songs, particularly popular tunes from the 1980s and 1990s. I jumped around a bit, playing guitar for one, lyrics on another, even drums once in awhile. Did I mention this was only for about three days this summer? Oh, and did I mention it was a simulated rock band played through a video game console?

Summer travels this year took our family to my brother’s house, where my husband and I tried the video game “Rock Band”. It takes the game experience beyond what you see on the screen. We used versions of the actual instru-ments, such as a multi-pad drum set, complete with bass pedal and drumsticks, guitars you could “strum”, and a micro phone. Each instru-ment registered our actions electronically and translated it into the song our video band was performing on the screen, wrong notes and all. We got a taste of the real thing, quickly and with little training. It was easy and fun to get into the experience—feeling as if you were re-ally jamming out with each other in the living room. At the same time it was just a game, a very sophisticated simulation.

Simulations, whether electronic, on paper, or in some other format, have their place in the classroom as well. For example, in this month’s Classroom Activity Connections feature, Deo and Hunt (p 19) suggest a simulation extension to JCE Classroom Activity #61 “Checkerboard Chromatography”. The original Activity is a board-game style simulation of column chro-matography that uses colored squares of paper, a drawn grid, and a die. Deo and Hunt describe a way to extend the Activity to simulate gel-filtration and affinity chromatog-raphy. They state “Using this extension eliminates the need to purchase large quantities of expensive biological reagents to construct and use actual columns. The extension is a simulation, as is the original board game, but still provides a visual separation with the colored paper squares.” Using such a simulation can be a quick and easy stand-alone introduction to chromatography, or a supplement to a demonstration of the real thing. For a colorful, high-interest column chromatography separation (an example is in the photo), take a look at “Glowmatography” by Kuntzleman, Comfort, and Baldwin (p 64). They separate the components of various lightsticks and use the demonstration to illustrate which reagents in a lightstick must come together to activate the glow.

JCE Classroom Activity #100

The 100th JCE Classroom Activity will make its way to your mailbox next month. We plan to highlight the American

Chemical Society’s Chemists Celebrate Earth Day theme “The Sky’s the Limit!” in the Activity. We’ll celebrate the Activity series at the ACS National Meeting in Salt Lake City in March 2009. John Moore and I will preside at a symposium split into two afternoons. Invited speakers include those who contributed to the first Activity, au-thors of our most popular Activities, along with teachers who have tips on how to use them in your classroom. The symposium will end each day close to the time the High School Day program begins. (Note that High School Day is expanded to “Days” at this meeting; it is currently scheduled for Monday and Tuesday in the late afternoon through the evening.) If you plan to attend the High School program, join us an hour or two earlier at the Activity symposium for more great teaching ideas. JCE also has a slot in the High School program for hands-on sharing of JCE staff ’s favorite Activities from throughout the years. See you there!

Laura’s Take on the Issue

Once again the language of my 33 years in chem-istry is likely changing. All my “chemistry-life” it has been atmosphere, Torr, and mm Hg as units of pressure. Though physicists use the units pascal and kilopascal,

and I do teach them, we as chemists rarely use them. However, McBane’s commentary (p 17) highlights why “We chemistry educators should abandon the atmosphere and replace it with the bar or the kilopascal or both.” I do not know if I am ready for, or willing to make, such a change, but like other changes in the chemistry vocabulary (for example, energy levels not energy shells), it is wise to make changes that are in the best interest of my students.

Collins and Taylor (p 21) also remind us of several other changes that high school teachers have encountered, in their article about the American Chemical Society’s second edition of Chemistry in the National Science Education Standards. Various chapters within the book suggest how to address these changes. I highly recommend this book to each of you.

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Column chroma tography is used to separate the components of a lightstick.