Description: This is an in class activity I use for first year general chemistry students to understand the relationship between quantum numbers and the structure of the atom.

This in-class activity is intended to help visualize the meaning of the subscripts and coefficients in molecular formulas that appear in balanced chemical equations. It has been my experience that students in 2nd semester general chemistry can sometimes still be confused about this fundamental aspect of chemical language. It substitutes edible candy for the atoms in a molecular model kit, thus allowing students to eat the atoms at the end. (My philosophy is that if students are eating, they're probably awake and could be learning!)

Chemical acrostic is used as a teaching tool in descriptive inorganic chemistry. This is an active learning approach to engage the students with a fun classroom activity. The acrostics are designed by Simon Cotton and published in the Royal Society of Chemistry's education resource magazine "The Mole." The students are divided into groups of two or three to work on the acrostics. To come up with the answers, the students engage in meaningful group discussions that enhance conceptual understanding.

Recent versions of Wolfram's Mathematica software have access to a variety of curated data sets that are relevant to Chemists.  This activity is an example of how one can use the ElementData dataset to develop an on-line tool to explore periodic trends.  Wolfram provides a free web-based platform (the FreeCDF plugin) to view and interact with specifically designed Mathematica files.  The activity can be accessed in one of three ways: