My Advanced Placement Essay

My Advanced Placement (AP) Chemistry was relatively homogenous compared to the rest of the school. Of the 29 students, 24 are white, 2 are Asian, 2 are black and one is Hispanic. There are 15 males and 14 females. No ethnic or linguistic variety affects the personality of the class. Most of the students are at benchmark for both reading and math, but one student is in the On Watch category for reading. I believe that the results of one standard for the STAR math might affect a few students ability to do this activity on their own. The standard was “make inferences and justify conclusions from sample surveys, experiments, and observational studies.” Two of my students scored below for that standard. I did make sure that these two students were

They include: elements are fundamental building materials of matter and can be understood in terms of arrangements of atoms and they retain their identity in reactions; properties of materials can be explained by the structure of atoms and molecules; changes in matter involve the rearrangement of atoms and/or electrons; rates are determined by details of molecular collisions; thermodynamics describes the roles of energy and explain the direction of changes in matter; and equilibrium is sensitive to initial conditions and external perturbations. These goals are the 6 big ideas set forth by College Board for the AP Chemistry exam. The students need to be proficient in these 6 big ideas by the AP exam on May 7. The instructional goals for this unit cover several of the learning objectives for the first big idea (elements are fundamental building materials of matter and can be understood in terms of arrangements of atoms and they retain their identity in reactions) by students learning the electron arrangements of atoms, how those are interpreted on a PES graph and how those affect the periodic trends.

Throughout the course of this activity, students participate in scientific discussion to explain the distribution of electrons in an atom or ion based upon data (Goal 1) and analyze data relating to electron energies for patterns and relationships (Goal 2). Not only did the lesson cover content from the standards, but my lesson included scientific skills such as predicting and