Teaching Resources

Chemview

Leonidas Tzianoudakis

Web Site/Portal

Basic, Medium

Problem solving, Experiential learning

Fundamental Chemistry, Life Chemistry, Materials Science, Food Science, History of Chemistry, Health Science, Environmental Chemistry

Lower Secondary School, Upper Secondary School

Greek

No

Prerequisites: The majority of the educational material available at the “Chemview” web site/portal does not require downloading any additional special software. It mainly consists of text, powerpoint files and videos. Some interactive simulations require Java, which is however automatically downloaded.

Contents – Task Description: The site is a rich source of material related to Chemistry organized in several categories. The main categories are the following: a) Chemistry in our life (Η Χημεία στη ζωή μας) with 117 cites, b) Chemistry experiments (πειράματα χημείας) with videos and in some cases short explanations with text of ca 200 laboratory experiments organized in 25 categories. Some experiments are quite spectacular, c) microscale chemistry experiments with 14 cites, d) the bad use of chemistry (η κακή χρήση της χημείας) with 17 cites, e) green chemistry (πράσινη χημεία) with 32 cites, f) 41 interactive simulations (διαδραστικές ασκήσεις), g) interesting material related to the lives of famous chemists and to the history of chemistry (μεγάλοι χημικοί), h) 17 cites on explanations on “why” certain everyday life phenomena occur (“Chemistry explains” – “Η χημεία εξηγεί”).

Aims: The educational material provided in this site aims mostly at helping the chemistry teacher incorporate interesting and appealing everyday life applications of chemistry in the teaching practice. The availability of a large collection of experiments in video can also help to make chemistry more attractive as a subject. The questions that are presented in the “chemistry explains” section aim at bringing out the connection of chemistry with real life and
at encouraging the students in adopting the scientific way of thinking. The material related with “green chemistry”, “the negative face of chemistry” and the “history of chemistry” bring out the social aspect of chemistry and also constitute an excellent tool for attracting students’ interest and attention.

Use in class: The tasks are described briefly, however adequately. The material could be incorporated in the class practice in several ways depending on the teacher’s ability, creativity and will to render his teaching more appealing. For example, the teacher can use the material for starting interesting discussions in the classroom by attracting students’ attention, for assigning small projects, for conducting simple experiments in very small scale in the classroom, and in the total absence of laboratory equipment and chemicals for at least showing videos of experiments to the students. The interactive simulations are also fairly easy to make use of in a classroom (or lab) equipped with an interactive whiteboard.

The main asset of this site is that it provides chemistry teachers, but also people who are just interested in learning “how nature functions”, with a large range of material and information that really bring out the close connection of chemistry with every day life experience. The site has selected some very appealing, interesting and often spectacular chemistry applications. The site gives the opportunity to the user to free subscription in order to participate in a discussion (forum) with different chemistry-related issues. In general, the site can be very helpful in increasing the average level of chemical literacy. One can really get quite motivated in learning chemistry and also appreciate its importance as a science, by navigating through this site. Overall, the material is scientifically reliable.

TEI of Ionian Islands