Beginning and Building an AP Chemistry Program

YOUR FIRST RESOURCES:

Visit AP Central(tm) -
The online resource for teachers, schools, colleges, and education professionals  --   http://apcentral.collegeboard.com
The College Board,
45 Columbus Avenue,
New York,
NY 10023-6992

Subscribe to the ap-chem Listserve:
Log on to: http://lyris.collegeboard.com/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?site=collegeboard&enter=ap-chem  and click on the  JOIN AP-CHEM button and complete the application form.

To search the archives or post messages online,
visit:  http://lyris.collegeboard.com/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?site=collegeboard&enter=ap-chem


PROMOTIONAL SUGGESTIONS:

R. Alexander of Texas mails a card to the top 50 or 60 AP chemistry prospects a year with about a 40 to 50 % enrollment from these prospects.  They do an AP fair for the school and handout flyers etc.  Click Here to Download the sample 2-sided card in MS Word format that is mailed out.  It contains nice flyer information promoting the program on the back page. 
Front page 1  ~  Back page 2                                                                         Thank you Mrs. Alexander!  

Many science departments provide time for AP Chemistry teachers to visit Honors Chemistry classes or other Honors level science courses and math classes to promote the AP Chemistry Program one week prior to programming for the next semester. It is also important to represent the course at any possible AP Fairs or AP Nights sponsored by the high schools as well as at Open House or Back to School Nights to encourage students and parents to be well informed about such school program offerings for potential students.

D. Downs of California generated a letter to parents along with a page long description of AP Chemistry which was constructed from information from his AP course textbook: Chemistry The Central Science, Brown, LeMay and Bursten, from Prentice Hall.
Sample Parent Letter     Why is Chemistry The Central Science?                    Thank you Mr. Downs!

AP INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS RESOURCE POWERPOINT

AP CHEMISTRY RESOURCE WEB LINKS:

 

Labs, Activities and Resources:

MOLECULAR GEOMETRY and MOLECULAR MODELING INFORMATION
 

Once you have downloaded CHIME check out these materials for instruction or  student use:  (Note that there are severeal types of 3-D model files, gif, mol, VRML and  PDB.  You can download and use these in instruction depending on which type of software you have to interpret these files.) 

CHIME does a pretty good job overall for a small program, Protein Explorer is more sophisticated, larger program.  Both are free. RASMOL is a plug-in for CHIME that allows more information, bond angle, etc. to be displayed but it is not necessary to view 3-D molecular models.

Brooks-Cole (Thompson Learning) Publishers have developed resources where you can simply view and rotate in CHIME a large selection molecules and crystal structures directly on their site.  I just ran across these and they're great.
         inorganic structures                 organic structures

This site contains all the basic structural geometries in 3-D molecules:  http://www.faidherbe.org/site/cours/dupuis/banque.htm#co2
Beginning modeling for you AND your students.  Great for special projects. http://www.nyu.edu/pages/mathmol/textbook/middle_home.html

This is an excellent site for beginners and has some images like those we viewed with the sophisticated UCI software under development.
http://www.nyu.edu/pages/mathmol/textbook/middle_home.html

This is a page I started with basic organic structure of alkanes and alcohols (under construction)  I don't believe it is viewable without downloading CHIME.

...And if all else fails, visit the High School Chemistry Teacher Support Group Resource Webpage for even MORE resources

More Stuff if you're interested:

Downloadable Computer simulations

Web Based High School Chemistry Simulations

Automated Assessments and Animated Tutorials

Chemistry Simulations

Merlot - See Chemistry

UAkron Simulations

 

BACK TO HOME PAGE   ~   BACK TO RESOURCE PAGE