UC Riverside 2007
AP Institute
July 29 - August 3, 2026

[ e-mail Addresses ]   [ Resources ]

Louise & Edith
Rhonda
Kevin R & Kevin S

Alicia & Matt
Holly & Kristin
Dawn & Amy

Timothy & Randall
Tom & Patricia


The Participants
Timothy Albrecht Notre Dame High School [email protected]
Patricia Bickel Eleanor Roosevelt High School [email protected]
Randall Dingwall Claremont High School [email protected]
Louise Ferrell Mater Dei High School [email protected]
Alicia Gonzalez Palm Springs High School [email protected]
Rhonda Grabow Corona High School [email protected]
Paul Groves South Pasadena High School [email protected]
Kristin Herchenroeder Rancho Cucamonga High School [email protected]
Edith Holt Norte Vista High School [email protected]
Tom Quinn San Jacinto High School [email protected]
Holly Root Kaiserslautern High School [email protected]
Kevin Rosa Martin Luther King High School [email protected]
Matt Schiller Poly High School [email protected]
Kevin Schultz Eisenhower High School [email protected]
Dawn Toth Redlands East Valley High School [email protected]
Amy Varricchio Tesoro High School [email protected]




Resources from Groves or Mentioned During the Institute

ChemEd'2007 -- A Great Summer Meeting
I mentioned that on even-numbered years, there is a big summer chemistry meeting called the BCCE (Biennial Conference in Chemical Education). In 2008 it will be at Indiana University, Bloomington. On odd-numbered years, you can go to ChemEd. In 2009 it will be in Christchurch, New Zealand!! I can't find a link to a conference site, yet, but here is the university.

National Chemistry Olympiad
This is part of the American Chemical Society's web site. The multiple choice tests are useful as practice exams for both the NChO Competition in March as well as for AP practice. These exams are kind of heavy in organic. The National Exam each year also includes two open-ended laboratory questions. The older exams can be found on the Chem Team web site (link from chemmybear). I have sorted some of these by topic and use them as additional practice topic by topic. Look for these on my "Handouts by Chapter" list on my AP chemistry class's page.

Website: Flash Animation of Tom Lehrer's Element Song.
This is a wonderful presentation that shows all the names and follows the music beautifully. The little animations are great... the more the student's know about the elements, the more they will get out of this.

Website: David's Whizzy Periodic Table
This is the cool presentation of the first 36 elements looking at the electrons filling and showing that the energy of each orbital changes as more protons enter the nucleus.

Website: I'm Dreaming of a White Precipitate.
This is what the demo looks like that goes with my Chemistry Carol.

Here are a couple of my Written Lecture and Lab Notes in their original condition... so you can see the pictures better.
  1. Atomic Structure and Bonding Lecture [Word | Acrobat]
  2. Predicting Reactions Lecture [Word | Acrobat] and Labs [Word | Acrobat]
  3. Equilibrium Lecture [Word | Acrobat] and Labs [Word | Acrobat]
  4. Redox Lecture [Word | Acrobat] and Labs [Word | Acrobat]

Atom Bond Or The Atom With The Golden Electron A parody of a James Bond movie. Golden Metallic Bond is sent off to investigate why carbon, nitrogen and other atoms are training themselves into other types of bonds. He discovers their bond school and university, finding that they are all working towards 'Project D'. In the finale, Bond is shown around a giant DNA. All the standard cliches and puns are used to contrive a wave showing each type of bond. 'ATOM' Award winner 1999. Gold Award, Beijing Science Festival 2000.
28 minutes 1999
US web site, buyindies.com

D&S; Marketing
We talked about the question books from D&S; Marketing. The multiple choice questions are written in the same format (non-calculator) as the AP exam. The website has some sample pages to look at. There are free-response questions as well. You need to buy the books in lots of 10.

Poem That Makes Sense After Studying Predicting Reactions:
Everyone has heard the poem:

Johnny was a chemist,
But Johnny is no more.
For what he thought was H2O,
Was H2SO4!

I found this second verse:
Johnny finding life a bore, drank some H2SO4.
Johnny's father, an M.D., gave him CaCO3.
Johnny's neutralized, it's true,
But now he's full of CO2.

Hot Potatoes
This is a downloadable free (to educators) program that allows you to make your own online quizzes. Many formats of quizzes are supported.
One of MY examples of a Hot Potatoes Test: Midterm Practice Test

Released Chemistry Questions--Powerpoint
This is one of my few Powerpoint presentations. I have scanned in the released questions from the Star Test to use as review with my classes. For each question, I try to point out the key words and phrases, give the correct answer, and perhaps give more information or at least work on eliminating incorrect answers. If this is useful, please take it.



Great Resources from the Participants!

Handouts from Louise: She showed us these handouts of various labs during the institute. They look like good labs and I plan on trying at least SOME of them out.
Website: Science Geek
This site has a lot of good information for AP teachers including Powerpoints.

Website: ChemistyGeek.com.
Neil Rapp from Bloomington, Indiana has a CD with many Chemistry and AP Chemistry PowerPoints that he will send to "visiting teachers" for a cost of $5. His instructions on how to obtain a complete set of his powerpoints can be found near the bottom of the page if you follow the link.

Website: General Chemistry Online
Fred Senese has put together tutorials, interactive construction kits, and tools that you might find valuable. I especially like the Isomer Construction Kit, the graphing tool, the animations of dipole-dipole and London Forces and a cool electrolyte simulation.

Website: Eduweblabs.com
Louise pointed this out as a great resource, but it requires a subscription now. It contains many simulated labs.

Website: Chemistry Comes Alive!--CD's
Amy highly recommended this set of 8 CD's published by the Journal of Chemical Education. Purchasing the set is much cheaper then buying them individually. They are a great collection of video clips of reactions and include the British Braniac video clips of the alkali metals.

Website: AP Chem Lab Simulations--NeoSci.com
Amy also recommends the rather expensive set of laboratory simulations available from NeoSci. If you go to their homepage, there is a demo video that shows them to you.. These might be especially good for those labs that you are never going to actually perform because of equipment or safety issues.

Website: Activity of Metals Simulation
John Gelder at Oklahoma State University has many useful simulations and animations that he uses in this chemistry classes as well as his distance learning classes. It is worth looking around his site for little gems such as this one. They may be part of his chemistry courses. Explore.

Website: Science's 10 Most Beautiful Physics Experiments
Louise shared this site that shows 10 classic experiments, some with some nice animations. The Millikan Oil Drop experiment is good to help students visualize that idea.

Website: Tom Greenbowe at Iowa State--Lab Simulations
I have worked on some committees with Tom Greenbowe and he has been developing some great-looking laboratory simulations. This looks like the main page for finding all of them, but I haven't fully explored the site. They generally have nice graphics and are interactive.

Website: ChemThink.com
Louise pointed out this site that is free and allows you to set up your classes, give assignments, and set deadlines. Student go through tutorials, answer questions, and their results are reported to you.

Website: Physics 2000!
This is a rather extensive website that tells the story of the development of the Atomic Theory in a comic-book format. Interspersed throughout are good graphics and animations that may be useful on their own or as extra reading for the students.

Chemistry Cruncher (Adobe Acrobat file)
Here is a four-page summary sheet that Louise showed us. I found it online by Googling for Chemistry Cruncher, but I don't know the name of the teacher who put this useful sheet together. Maybe it is on the handout.

Qualitative Analysis Lab Sim--Anions
From Dartmouth College, this Java laboratory simulation is called Soluble Puzzles in which you need to determine the Anion in an unknown substance.

Qualitative Analysis Lab Sim--Cations
From Dartmouth College, this Java laboratory simulation is called Soluble Puzzles in which you need to determine the Cation in an unknown substance.


Resources From Former Years:
Zumdahl Powerpoints
Here are some useful powerpoint presentations designed to follow the Zumdahl text.

Website: Dr. Cotton's Pre-AP Chemistry Class Notes
This website has a collection of Powerpoint presentations. They may be useful as is or as a starting point for your own presentations.

Website: Nancy Clark's Resources
Nancy Clark from Massachusetts has retired after 39 years of teaching Science. She has a page with links to Mrs. J's PowerPoints, Jeopardy software, "World of Chemistry" videos, Chemistry jokes, a student safety contract, and much more.
--Note from Paul... I've taken a little time to look at this site... it is PACKED with good stuff... I will definitely come back to grab more resources.

Website: Chemistry Applets from Davidson College
Here is a nice set of simulations and problems based on Applets. The graphics are simple, but they present various good ideas. Check them out.

Demos from Univ of Wisconsin
I was looking around the Internet for some images of demonstrations and came across this site. It is sort of a catalog of demos so the college professors can choose which ones they want to have set up for their classes... there are some good images here and a good reminder of some demonstrations worth doing.

Chromate-Dichromate Equilibrium:
I found this site when I was looking for a picture of the chromate-dichromate Le Chatelier's demonstration. It is actually a cute little interactive website.

Some interesting media files to accompany a Prentice Hall Book.

Atom Builder:
This is a cute Shockwave program that asks you to build a stable atom by creating proton and neutrons (using quarks) and placing the protons, neutrons, and electrons in the correct places. Try it.