A Comprehensive General Chemistry Demonstration

Abstract

This article describes the use of a comprehensive demonstration suitable for a high school or first-year undergraduate introductory chemistry class. The demonstration involves placing a burning candle in a container adjacent to a beaker containing a basic solution with indicator. After adding a lid, the candle will extinguish and the produced carbon dioxide will react with the water to yield enough carbonic acid to neutralize the basic solution resulting in a change to the indicator. This demonstration includes aspects of most of the topics discussed in a typical general chemistry course. Two different methods are described to use this demonstration in a class: as a recurrent demonstration revisited regularly or as the basis for a cumulative oral final exam.

The Effectiveness of Teachers' Use of Demonstrations for Enhancing Students' Understanding of and Attitudes to Learning the Oxidation-Reduction Concept

“…Exposure to demonstrations improves students' perceptions of their learning efficiency and the importance of the subject and also enhances the students' achievements and their understanding of redox concepts. This result is compatible with Sweeder and Jeffery's (2013) finding that demonstrations, if planned properly, and if they are effectively integrated into the learning of concepts, have potential to play an important role in students developing a deep and rich understanding of chemical concepts.…”

Lessons Learned Using a Demonstration in a Large Classroom of Pharmacy Students

“…While demonstrations of acid-base concepts similar to those reported here have been published, no data have been presented on the effectiveness of these demonstrations on student learning. 6,7 Beyond the effects stemming from the choice of delivery method, evidence has been advanced that the effectiveness of in-class demonstrations can be greatly enhanced by pausing at critical points in the demonstration to have students predict results, discuss outcomes, and identify misconceptions. [8][9][10] The ability to pause video demonstrations at any point makes them amenable to the addition of questions that encourage critical thinking and metacognition by the students; thus, this approach may further improve the effectiveness of the demonstrations and would be a worthwhile subject of future work.…”

Verbal Final Exam in Introductory Biology Yields Gains in Student Content Knowledge and Longitudinal Performance

“…in his chemistry course, in which each student only gets one chance to take the VF with the professor (Sweeder and Jeffery, 2012). Also, one published approach focuses on the learning benefits of verbal exams administered to students as a group (Boe, 1996; Guest and Murphy, 2000).…”