My name is Joy Walker and I teach at Truman College in Chicago. I've been teaching chemistry since 1978 when I began as a laboratory teaching assistant for General Chemistry taught at Kansas University located in the lovely town of Lawrence, Kansas. I remember how much fun I had in laboratory making potions and exploring the variety of chemical changes I could produce. This is a subject that will always be relevant and promises no less than to reveal the secrets of anything that matters, well that is to say anything that is matter.
I believe that chemistry should be experienced through the senses and in this way we can recognize that we are not just surrounded by chemicals and chemical change but we are chemicals. As we learn about the secrets of matter and examine its behavior at the atomic layer a new revelation occurs. There are still mysteries waiting to be discovered.
Resources for all Chemistry Students
- Policies
- Student Interview (rtf): This survey appears in Blackboard. Please complete it there.
- Chemistry: One Book
International Year of Chemistry 2011
Laboratory
- Laboratory Safety Contract
- Chemical Hygiene Plan - Laboratory Safety Regulations
- An Unsafe Lab
- Laboratory Notebook
- Rubric for a Formal Laboratory Report
Periodic Tables
- Periodic Table Distributed for Exams - Without Element Names pdf | docx
- Periodic Table Symbols Only
- Blank Table
- More Periodic Tables to Print
- Periodic Table Includes Names of Elements
- Interactive Periodic Table
- The Periodic Table of Videos
- The Wooden Periodic Table Full of photographs of elements - this site is amazing. It all includes an article on the dishonesty of Brainiac when they produced videos of exploding alkali metals. Theodore Gray also has a new website: Periodic Table
- Interactive Periodic Table An excellent reference with both data and images for the elements.
- It's Elemental: Stories About the Elements
Reference Data
Music and Chemistry
- The first twenty elements.
- They Might Be Giants: "Meet the Elements" (BB Video) (lyrics)
- The Elements Song (flash). (lyrics)This animation is based on one of the most famous creations of Tom Lehrer, master of satire in the early 1950s. It is simply the elements of the periodic table sung to a "vaguely recognizable" tune.
Study Aids
- Inorganic Nomenclature Flash cards you can print
- Non-metal Ions, Polyatomic Ions and Common Acids (memorize)
- Amazing visualizations of molecules in jmol format are available at the Chemical Education Digital Library ChemEd DL
- The Khan Academy is a not-for-profit organization with the missin of prividing a high quality education to anyone, anywere. They have over a thousand videos on YouTube covering everything from abasic arithmetic and algerbar to higher math and the sciences.
- Characteristics of the Scientific Method - Bertrand Russell
- General Chemistry Online This incredible site won the 2004 Science and Technology Web Award from Scientific American. It is full of interesting and interactive information about chemistry.
- Powers of Ten An interactive java tutorial - travel 10 million light years from the Earth then return and travel downward into the nucleus of a carbon atom.
- CHIME This program will allow you to visualize 3-D molecules and it's free to download and use.
- The Orbitron A gallery of atomic orbitals and molecular orbitals.
- Online flash cards to learn common polyatomic ions
- Mark Bishop's Chemistry Website Practically a complete chemistry textbook online with many animations, tutorials, and chime molecules.
- Flash cards for elements on the periodic table from the Jeffereson Lab
- Complex Ions
- Excelets for General Chemistry (requires Excel)
- Physics 2000: Wonderful explanations of many Physics Concepts that relate to Chemistry
- Vocabulary Coach
Podcasts and Videos
- Professor Walker's video library: Problem solving sessions, classroom sessions, lessons.
- ACS Webinars
- NurdRage Science Experiments
- Symphony of Science: Wave of Reason
- Large Hadron Rap
- C60, the Celestial Sphere that Fell to Earth
- Distillations: Podcasts about Chemistry
- Styrofoam and Acetone
- The Elegant Universe (NOVA)
- The Science of Fireworks
- Supercritical Fluids by Professor Martyn Poliakoff
- Triple Point of t-Butyl Alcohol (It boils and freezes simultaneously.)
- Nanotechnology
- Recycling Car Batteries for Lead
Chemistry Societies, News and History
- Science Daily: Chemistry has many articles about the latest research news.
- American Chemical Society (ACS) The American Chemical Society is a congressionally chartered independent membership organization which represents professionals at all degree levels and in all fields of chemistry and sciences that involve chemistry.
- RSC (Royal Society of Chemistry) - Advancing the Chemical Sciences. This is a wonderful website with an incredible amount of information and phenomenal visuals. The Chemistry World area is full of relevant stories about chemistry.
- ACS: Global Challenges Chemical Solutions (pdf 84 pages)
- Chemical Achievers Learn about the men and women who made chemistry history.
- Chemical Heritage Foundation This organization "serves the community of the chemical and molecular sciences, and the wider public, by treasuring the past, educating the present, and inspiring the future".
- Wikipedia - Chemistry
- Sense About Science "Sense About Science is an independent charitable trust. We respond to the misrepresentation of science and scientific evidence on issues that matter to society, from scares about plastic bottles, fluoride and the MMR vaccine to controversies about genetic modification, stem cell research and radiation."
- The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments by Robert Brent
Green Chemistry
Featured Compounds
- What's That Stuff
- Molecule of the Day
- Thermite (video) Watch thermite react at temperatures hot enough to melt an engine block.
- The Chemistry of Chilli Peppers Ever wonder what makes 'em hot?
- Alkali Metals and Water (video) This video illustrates the relative reactivities of the alkali metals with water. The Brainiac version is fake.
- Chemical of the Week Professor Shakhashiri has produced facts sheets about a collection of well known chemicals.
- Pigments through the Ages
- Household Products Database Look up the chemical names of the ingredients in many common products.
- Drano
- Copper Chemistry
General Information
- Oxidation Number Rules
- Elemental Composition of the Human Body
- The Particle Adventure: The Fundamentals of Matter and Force
- Common Misconceptions About Chemistry
- The Future of Nanotechnology
Simulations
- Gas Law Simulator
- PhET Gas Law Simulator
- Photoelectric Effect
- Simulated Acid-Base Titrations
- Atomic Spectra: Emission and Absorption
Downloads and Programs
- Free graph paper templates
- Make your own plain graph paper
- Free Adobe Acrobat PDF file reader
- Fold a paper tetrahedron