For some of us, chemistry is magic. Even the “boring” stuff like stoichiometry and *shiver* kinetics. For many, we need to find ways to make chemistry engaging for high school students. After countless numbers of students have said to me “Mrs. Reavy, I love you and your class, but I HATE chemistry,” I feel like a superhero.. I’m able to bring out the fun in high school chemistry where oftentimes, there isn’t a lot of fun. Here are my tips on how to make chemistry engaging for high school students, when you need to compete with TikTok.
Labs and Hands On Learning
I think this one is pretty straight forward. When you have really cool labs it’s easy for kids to get excited about chemistry. Getting to see science in action is critical to make chemistry engaging! When you think about it, chemistry is imaginary. Atoms and molecules are so tiny they’re invisible, so it’s imperative to get the macro moving so students can visualize what’s going on. This certainly can be difficult, especially if you’re new to chemistry, don’t have a ton of supplies or you aren’t confident with students being safe in the lab. I have a ton of blog posts all about labs so check out what you need.
Tricking Students with Games
Teenagers are looking to have fun. They’re just giant sized kindergarteners. They will compete for stickers, candy, bonus points or even paperclips! (Yes, I’ve done it – it’s like a trophy!) Anything you can do to gamify your practice activities will help to make chemistry engaging for high school students.
Puzzles
This can be both printable puzzles and digital puzzles. My students actually really love doing crossword puzzles. Since I give vocabulary quizzes, this is great practice for them before they take the quiz, which probably helps with the engagement factor. (Kids are weird. Crosswords are not that fun if you ask me.)
We also have a few secret puzzle activities that we love. They’re done in Google Slides. On each slide is a multiple choice question. Each answer choice has a section of a picture associated with it. If they get the right answer, they will get the correct puzzle piece. But if wrong, they get the wrong puzzle piece. When the puzzle picture is looking normal, they will know their answer choices are correct. If the puzzle comes out wonky, students will know which questions they need to go back to and fix up.
Specifically for vocabulary, I give my students joke decipher puzzles. The students are given 10 definitions and have to fill in the corresponding vocabulary terms. Certain letters from their answers will fill in the punch line of a joke. I’ve been adding these to my vocabulary pack available on TPT. Make sure to check out the chemical bonding vocabulary resources, because those are free!
Pixel Art
I personally LOVE these pixel art activities for help to make chemistry engaging. Students work in Google Sheets answering open ended questions with a definitive correct answer. This helps a lot with those pesky math questions. Students plug their answer into the Google Sheet and they are immediately marked correct or incorrect. As they correctly complete the pixel art activity, colored blocks lift away revealing a hidden image. My students absolutely LOVE these activities. They’re always trying to race each other to figure out the animal that’s hidden behind the blocks. I love it because it’s self grading and amazing for self assessment.
Finger Lights
Another crowd pleaser that gets my students engaged in chemistry is finger lights. I prepare slideshows with multiple choice questions. Each answer choice has a color which matches the color of lights that students rubber band to their fingers. I give students some time to answer these questions and on the count of three, they turn on the correct colored light.
It’s honestly the EASIEST way to turn boring multiple choice questions into something more engaging. When my principal walks by, he knows Reavy’s class is having a BLAST.
Warning: your students will try to “accidentally walk away” with your finger lights. They also may just “break” or “disappear.” Watch out! I pack my up in sets with little sauce containers I got from the dollar store. Students have to return all four lights in the set in order to leave the class when we’re done. And I have to approve all “broken” lights – no tossing without asking. (Just to make sure they’re truly broken and not just disappeared.)
Task Cards
This one is a shocker, right?! Task cards usually are not that fun, but we have quite a few ways that we shake it up and make them exciting. I have this blog post all about how I use task cards. I’ll give you a quick run down. We turn them into games! My task cards are often color coded by question type or difficulty. This means that I can tell my students to answer X number of blue, Y number of green, etc.
A lot of the time we race to get this done. Other times we see who can get the most correct answers in a certain amount of time. You could also attach your task cards to a board game. If you get a question right, you can take a turn at the game. Black Friday is my time to buy board games. One year, I got a bunch of them for $4 a piece: Candy Land, Trouble, Chutes and Ladders. I’ve seen smaller versions of these games sold at the Dollar Tree as well.
Whiteboards
My students LOVE using the whiteboards. I like to do this for Lewis Structures, nomenclature and other chemistry tasks that would otherwise require quite a bit of practice. I got my whiteboards when I first started teaching. They lasted the full six years I was working (in person) and still had a good amount of time left in them. (Granted we only EVER used Expo Brand markers – never knock offs). When I left Brick and Mortar teaching, I gave my boards to the biology teacher as a hand me down.
Sometimes just the board itself is engaging enough. Students work on a question I give them, and hold up the board to be checked when they are done.
Other times I will put the kids on teams. When they get the right answer they can earn points. For some activities, they can either choose to earn a point or remove a point from another team. Different questions can be worth different numbers of points too! Try rolling a die to determine the number of points a question is worth.
Trashketball
The premise of this game is to shoot a ball (or a ball of paper) into a basket (or the trash). Sometimes for this we use the whiteboards to answer the question. Other times students have to line up and verbally answer a question I give them. They earn points for the correct answer to the question, but also when they score a basket. My students absolutely love this game and ask to play it. One time a student cut up his worksheet, gave it to me and asked me to “ask the questions Trashketball Style.” Talk about a way to make chemistry engaging! This strategy works especially well during March Madness or basketball season.
Card Sorts
This activity isn’t *that* exciting on its own. It certainly requires an added element of competition or a prize to win. In a card sort, there are small cards that need to be sorted into different categories. Usually that goes along with the “this or that” of chemistry. Element Compound or MIxture? Acid or Base? I initially had these all on paper, but with the hybrid year, I moved them into Google Slides as well. I have a collection of card sorts you can check out.
Blooket
This is one of my students’ favorite ways to play online games. Blooket is kind of like Kahoot, except it’s really been gamified. You can go through other teacher’s question sets or add your own. Then you select a game to play with your questions. My favorite is Gold Quest. For every correct question, students open a treasure chest where they can earn gold or steal from their classmates. It’s a hoot! If students create an account (I let them decide on this), they can earn points and collect little character icons to play with. I worked very hard to earn the unicorn which I always use when I join my students! You can check out my premade sets and use them with your own students.
Videos
Starting out in an old art classroom I really relied on videos to help with my “chemistry experience.” When you can’t get your hands on an actual Bunsen burner, a video is the next best thing to make chemistry engaging. I also created a YouTube channel to teach every single lesson in my curriculum. This is great for absent students, studying for tests or just hearing the content a second time or in a new way. I also have recorded a few labs!
Demos
These can be tough, depending on your particular situation. (It was very hard for me in the art classroom, hence me relying on videos.) I try to incorporate demos and phenomena when I can. I have a list of kinetics phenomena and demos you can get for free. I’m in the process of collecting what I know (and doing a bit of research where I’m lacking) and adding my lists to my curriculum. I will say, these are MUCH easier to do in the second semester during applied chemistry. The first semester, (micro chemistry) atomic, periodic table and bonding are mostly covered by labs in my classroom.
