Use AACT Resources to Celebrate National Chemistry Week 2019: Marvelous Metals!

By AACT on October 1, 2019

National Chemistry Week (NCW) is celebrated October 20 – 26th, 2019. This year’s theme is Marvelous Metals, and we are celebrating the properties and uses of metals as well as metals, alloys, magnetism, electricity and batteries. In the spirit of the NCW theme, AACT hosted a content writing contest for current teacher members. This year’s winners were Middle School teacher, Jennifer Smith, from Monticello Middle School, located in Monticello, Illinois and High School teacher, Melissa Payne, from Jeffersontown High School, located in Louisville, Kentucky. Both teachers created an exciting and unique lesson plan inspired by the theme of NCW.

Jennifer’s NGSS aligned lesson plan, Behind the Metal, is appropriate for middle school students. During this lesson, students will learn about the properties of metals. The students will work in small groups to create a video to anthropomorphize their selected metal as though it were a heavy metal musician and share the video with their peers.

Melissa’s NGSS aligned lesson plan, Observing Properties of Those Marvelous Metals, is designed for use with high school students. During this lesson, students will see how metals, both pure metals and alloys, may have different physical and chemical properties. They will investigate how these properties contribute to their usefulness in manufacturing and construction.

In addition to these new and exciting lesson plans, if you were not able to attend the AACT National Chemistry Week themed webinar, Activities and Demonstrations Aligned with the 2019 NCW Theme, “Marvelous Metals!”, on September 25th you can still watch the video recording! This webinar was hosted by, Tom Kuntzleman and shares about how to use familiar, inexpensive, and easy-to-obtain items to explore the physical and chemical properties of metals. A variety of activities and demonstrations were highlighted, including how to initiate a Diet Coke fountain using metal spheres of various density, how to simulate the chemical formation the green color on the copper surface of the Statue of Liberty, how to use decorate metal electrodes to create electrochemical art, and how to differentiate between the chemical composition of various coins.

Elementary and middle school teachers can use this year’s edition of Celebrating Chemistry, from the American Chemical Society to engage young students in basic chemistry principles related to NCW. The digital version is free to download, and includes activities, articles, puzzles and experiments that connect to this year’s theme, Marvelous Metals!

If you are looking for even more NCW themed ideas for use in your classroom check out the highlighted resources from the AACT library below!

K-12 Multimedia:

High School Classroom Resources:

Middle School Classroom Resources:

Elementary School Classroom Resources: