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copperastic
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[*] posted on 18-3-2014 at 17:08
no chemistry in your school


Hi, I was just wondering who doesn't have chemistry in their school. I don't but i do in high school but im only in 6th grade.



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bismuthate
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[*] posted on 19-3-2014 at 03:23


Last year my school (also 6th grade) decided to skip over the unit on chemistry:mad: so that (and a lot of wrong info in our text books) pissed me off.



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HgDinis25
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[*] posted on 19-3-2014 at 06:42


Quote: Originally posted by bismuthate  
Last year my school (also 6th grade) decided to skip over the unit on chemistry:mad: so that (and a lot of wrong info in our text books) pissed me off.


I think we can all agree that, if you really want to learn chemistry, school is the last place you should go...
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Fantasma4500
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[*] posted on 19-3-2014 at 07:01


some in my high school are furious because chemistry was one of the few classes that was made as class you can choose whether to be in or not

anyhow school chemistry is just a weird thing, when i declined to have german class in school i learned many times more german by playing online games with germans once in a while even tho i had no clue on what they were saying, somehow just managed to learn it out of nowhere more and more




~25 drops = 1mL @dH2O viscocity - STP
Truth is ever growing - but without context theres barely any such.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solubility_table
http://www.trimen.pl/witek/calculators/stezenia.html
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HgDinis25
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[*] posted on 19-3-2014 at 07:16


Quote: Originally posted by Antiswat  
some in my high school are furious because chemistry was one of the few classes that was made as class you can choose whether to be in or not

anyhow school chemistry is just a weird thing, when i declined to have german class in school i learned many times more german by playing online games with germans once in a while even tho i had no clue on what they were saying, somehow just managed to learn it out of nowhere more and more


Haha true, I learned English (I'm Portuguese) by reading English chemistry literature and by watching series and by playing online games xP

I agree with bismuthate, wrong text book information pisses me off. This year's text book states, for instance, that ammonia is flammable at room temperature. C'mon that's a little bit exagerated but my teacher completed the sentece stating that lighting an ammonia solution in water could cause an explosion. -.-
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[*] posted on 19-3-2014 at 07:30


Quote: Originally posted by HgDinis25  

I think we can all agree that, if you really want to learn chemistry, school is the last place you should go...

Not true, school is a great place to learn chemistry. They wont have exciting experiments usually, but as far as learning the basics, having a teacher beats teaching yourself.
And why would you be surprised if 6th grade doesn't have a chemistry class? I have never seen chem being taught in elementary, although physical science does cover chemistry a little.
I doubt I will even take a chemistry class in high school at all, because I have an above high school level knowledge of chemistry already. I will take chemistry at a community collage this year, (next school year,) for dual credit. (Even though I'm only in tenth grade.)




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HgDinis25
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[*] posted on 19-3-2014 at 07:34


Quote: Originally posted by Zyklonb  
Quote: Originally posted by HgDinis25  

I think we can all agree that, if you really want to learn chemistry, school is the last place you should go...

Not true, school is a great place to learn chemistry. They wont have exciting experiments usually, but as far as learning the basics, having a teacher beats teaching yourself.
And why would you be surprised if 6th grade doesn't have a chemistry class? I have never seen chem being taught in elementary, although physical science does cover chemistry a little.
I doubt I will even take a chemistry class in high school at all, because I have an above high school level knowledge of chemistry already. I will take chemistry at a community collage this year, (next school year,) for dual credit. (Even though I'm only in tenth grade.)


Nobody is talking about excinting experiments. We're talking about the basics being taught wrongly. Just read my other post ont his topic, and you'll see the tip of the iceberg of how badly school works here in Portugal.
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[*] posted on 19-3-2014 at 09:13


Chemistry in grade 6? When I was in grade 6, we had a general "science" class that barely mentioned atoms. We didn't actually do chemistry until grade 9.



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[*] posted on 19-3-2014 at 09:17


Quote: Originally posted by DraconicAcid  
Chemistry in grade 6? When I was in grade 6, we had a general "science" class that barely mentioned atoms. We didn't actually do chemistry until grade 9.


Yes, that too hapens here. However, inside the all general science theme, we had a part relating to chemistry (basic of the basic, like H2O is water), if I recall correctly.
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Zyklon-A
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[*] posted on 19-3-2014 at 09:59



Quote:

Nobody is talking about excinting experiments. We're talking about the basics being taught wrongly. Just read my other post ont his topic, and you'll see the tip of the iceberg of how badly school works here in Portugal.

I wasn't talking about "excinting " experiments either.
In America, classes rarely give misinformation, AFAIK.
They do many tests, to make sure.




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[*] posted on 19-3-2014 at 10:34


Where do you come from where you are saying they give you misinformation? I have never seen anything like that while I was being educated, at most some oversimplifications, but they usually get back on that trying to teach you new stuff...
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[*] posted on 19-3-2014 at 10:48


Quote: Originally posted by Tsjerk  
Where do you come from where you are saying they give you misinformation? I have never seen anything like that while I was being educated, at most some oversimplifications, but they usually get back on that trying to teach you new stuff...


If you're talking to me, I'm from Portugal.
I can give you a few examples. For instance
- My chemistry teacher shouted at me for having 0.1 M acetic acid out of the fume hood for too long ( Vinegar is 1M) and when I said that vinegar was 1M she started screaming again and simply wouldn't answer;
- She also said that there are no plastic pasteur pippetes, and she calls them eye droppers;
- She said that lighting an ammonia solution could cause an explosion of burning ammonia;

You may think that this is an isolated case, but I know another teacher who said chlorine doesn't react with water and another one who couldn't explain sodium's reaction with water...
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[*] posted on 19-3-2014 at 11:20


Quote: Originally posted by HgDinis25  
Quote: Originally posted by Tsjerk  
Where do you come from where you are saying they give you misinformation? I have never seen anything like that while I was being educated, at most some oversimplifications, but they usually get back on that trying to teach you new stuff...


If you're talking to me, I'm from Portugal.
I can give you a few examples. For instance
- My chemistry teacher shouted at me for having 0.1 M acetic acid out of the fume hood for too long ( Vinegar is 1M) and when I said that vinegar was 1M she started screaming again and simply wouldn't answer;
- She also said that there are no plastic pasteur pippetes, and she calls them eye droppers;
- She said that lighting an ammonia solution could cause an explosion of burning ammonia;

You may think that this is an isolated case, but I know another teacher who said chlorine doesn't react with water and another one who couldn't explain sodium's reaction with water...


At lower grades, a chemistry or science teacher is expected to have a teaching degree. They are not required or even expected to have a degree in, or any expertise in science or chemistry. The school administration will just make do with the teachers they have, and if the regular gym teacher is short of few hours on his workload, and they need someone to teach chemistry, guess who gets the job? My grade 9 science teacher took the job expecting to teach phys ed most of the time (but this meant that he was comfortable admitting that he wasn't an expert, and if he wasn't sure about something, he'd often ask me). My grade 10 chemistry teacher did have some education in chemistry, but was hospitalized part-way through September, and was replaced by someone who had no idea what she was talking about. We argued about whether combustion produced liquid water or water vapour, and she tried to prove herself right by lighting a candle, and pointing out the melted wax at the base of the flame, claiming that it was the liquid water being produced.




Please remember: "Filtrate" is not a verb.
Write up your lab reports the way your instructor wants them, not the way your ex-instructor wants them.
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HgDinis25
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[*] posted on 19-3-2014 at 11:29


Quote: Originally posted by DraconicAcid  
Quote: Originally posted by HgDinis25  
Quote: Originally posted by Tsjerk  
Where do you come from where you are saying they give you misinformation? I have never seen anything like that while I was being educated, at most some oversimplifications, but they usually get back on that trying to teach you new stuff...


If you're talking to me, I'm from Portugal.
I can give you a few examples. For instance
- My chemistry teacher shouted at me for having 0.1 M acetic acid out of the fume hood for too long ( Vinegar is 1M) and when I said that vinegar was 1M she started screaming again and simply wouldn't answer;
- She also said that there are no plastic pasteur pippetes, and she calls them eye droppers;
- She said that lighting an ammonia solution could cause an explosion of burning ammonia;

You may think that this is an isolated case, but I know another teacher who said chlorine doesn't react with water and another one who couldn't explain sodium's reaction with water...


At lower grades, a chemistry or science teacher is expected to have a teaching degree. They are not required or even expected to have a degree in, or any expertise in science or chemistry. The school administration will just make do with the teachers they have, and if the regular gym teacher is short of few hours on his workload, and they need someone to teach chemistry, guess who gets the job? My grade 9 science teacher took the job expecting to teach phys ed most of the time (but this meant that he was comfortable admitting that he wasn't an expert, and if he wasn't sure about something, he'd often ask me). My grade 10 chemistry teacher did have some education in chemistry, but was hospitalized part-way through September, and was replaced by someone who had no idea what she was talking about. We argued about whether combustion produced liquid water or water vapour, and she tried to prove herself right by lighting a candle, and pointing out the melted wax at the base of the flame, claiming that it was the liquid water being produced.


Nop, here it's mandatory to have a degree in either Physics or chemistry to teach Physics and Chemistry (Here it's the same subject).
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[*] posted on 19-3-2014 at 11:32


The fact that this thread has to exist is a disgrace. From middle school, kids should have the opportunity to mess around with chemicals, lasers, and everything else deemed "dangerous."

DraconicAcid: I had the exact same thing happen to me - 6th grade science was just teachers telling us, "Science is FUN!" Like we need a teacher to tell us that. I had to wait a decade from my first interest in science to finally get into a real chemistry course. I'm a senior in high school and I still haven't seen things like thermite or alkali metals in water.




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[*] posted on 19-3-2014 at 12:18


Let me better explain my previous post, my science book last year had an entire section on chemistry (on the most basic level) which my teacher decided to skip. My school is not a good school for science (my teacher wouldn't let me do my original science fair idea because it involved HCl) so I'll probabley want to take highschool chem (plus I'm pretty bad at it so I need practice). The information can be horrible sometimes in my book eg electrons randomly move around the nucleus, there are only two types of bonds, there are only three states of matter ect.



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I post pictures of chemistry on instagram as bismuthate. http://iconosquare.com/bismuthate
or this viewer if you don't have an instagram (it sucks though) http://web.stagram.com/n/bismuthate
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[*] posted on 19-3-2014 at 12:22


Quote: Originally posted by bismuthate  
The information can be horrible sometimes in my book eg electrons randomly move around the nucleus, there are only two types of bonds, there are only three states of matter ect.


It's a simplified version. They have a hard enough time teaching most grade-nine students without throwing in plasma and atomic orbitals.




Please remember: "Filtrate" is not a verb.
Write up your lab reports the way your instructor wants them, not the way your ex-instructor wants them.
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[*] posted on 19-3-2014 at 12:26


Yes but I feel they should say that they do exist but explain it is for a higher level. They also were horrible at explaining acids and bases. (they basicaly (heh) said that acids have low pH and bases have high pH and never really explained what pH was.



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[*] posted on 19-3-2014 at 12:36


Quote:
Yes but I feel they should say that they do exist but explain it is for a higher level.


I've developed the habit of making blanket statements in class, followed by the disclaimer "...as far as this course is concerned".

Quote:
They also were horrible at explaining acids and bases. (they basicaly (heh) said that acids have low pH and bases have high pH and never really explained what pH was.


That's....pretty pathetic.

Of course, most texts give the Arrhenius definition of acids and bases, and leave it as that...even though no real chemist has used that since the 30s. Apparently ammonia's not really a base...it just reacts with water to make hydroxide ion, which is actually the base...

[Edited on 19-3-2014 by DraconicAcid]




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HgDinis25
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[*] posted on 19-3-2014 at 12:42


Quote: Originally posted by DraconicAcid  
Quote: Originally posted by bismuthate  
The information can be horrible sometimes in my book eg electrons randomly move around the nucleus, there are only two types of bonds, there are only three states of matter ect.


It's a simplified version. They have a hard enough time teaching most grade-nine students without throwing in plasma and atomic orbitals.


That's exactly the problem. Our education system (at least here in Portugal) is merely designed to assess medium students, and hrow at them a lot of concepts for them to memorize. They then ask them to throw them up, when it's time to take a test. The concepts may be pathetic but the important part is not thinking about them, is simply to memorize them (that's why they oversimplify things to the point of wrong concepts). And that's why teachers don't have a clue what they are talking about. Now, like I said this is for medium students. The least intelligent simply can't memorize nothing and are forgotten. The most intelligent students, who want to think about concepts, ask a lot of question, REALLY undestand the subject, are disrespected and many times the teacher simply says: Shut up. Why can she say that? Because she's the teacher.

Education is messed up.
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[*] posted on 19-3-2014 at 14:45


I actually do have a good chemistry teacher. For the most part, she knows what she is talking about, she appreciates that I do my own experiments and doesn't discourage it.
Unfortunately, the demographic of my school is very… football oriented, and thus, even in my Pre-AP chemistry class, many people act blatantly disrespectful almost constantly, and the rest just try to push through the course. I seem to be the only one in my class who is even the least bit interested in the subject matter. They don't realize how lucky they are to be having the opportunity of a decent chemistry education, and they take it for granted.
I'm hoping that AP chemistry next year will be better, but I'm not expecting all that much out of it.
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[*] posted on 20-3-2014 at 05:40


i know we have it in my country as low as 7.th elementary school grades.. they decided to run around throwing CuSO4 solution everywhere -- and eventually into a girls eyes
would not even surprise me if the idiots didnt learn from it




~25 drops = 1mL @dH2O viscocity - STP
Truth is ever growing - but without context theres barely any such.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solubility_table
http://www.trimen.pl/witek/calculators/stezenia.html
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[*] posted on 26-3-2014 at 16:08


We did black powder and flash powder. We detonated perchlorate + sulfur. Did Al + I2 + H2O in the open (cool poisonous violet smoke).
This was primary school (7-8th grade, age 13-14).

At UNI we've had azide and nitrogen triodide detonated in the classroom.

Eastern-Europe rox.
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[*] posted on 26-3-2014 at 16:19


We have college chemistry in our school, and now we will have organic chemistry next year!
I believe that if schools allowed middle school kids with genuine interest in a particular field take more advanced, "hands-on" classes in that field, teachers wouldn't have to spend their time trying to MAKE kids want to learn a subject. It is hard if you don't have a formal school class or a nice fat wallet to pay for a privet tutor. Fortunately there is so much information on the web these days that one could learn everything he would in a middle school class just by watching a few you-tube videos and reading a few articles. Unfortunately you can never replace the motivation and the drive that an actual grade supplies.




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[*] posted on 28-3-2014 at 15:14


Yeah, even though the articles, videos, and places like this forum are great for learning about chemistry, people won't start unless something sparks their interest, and that's what school should do.
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