Publications and Awards
Understanding chemistry through microscale practical work
By Bob Worley, David Paterson with Sarah Longshaw
The link you need for this book is as follows.
https://www.millgatehouse.co.uk/product/understanding-chemistry-through-microscale-practical-work/
Understanding chemistry through microscale practical work is a guide to, an explanation of and we hope an inspiration for the microscale technique. It provides an explanation of where and how microscale techniques can be incorporated into practical work, outlining suggested activities and extensions. It also discusses pedagogy and how using microscale can help students to learn and understand the chemistry that they are being taught. It is for all educators, regardless of experience, but more importantly, it is for their students.
Microscale chemistry activities offer a way of carrying out practical work that provides many benefits. From adding variety to the practical curriculum, to providing safer ways of achieving results, to shortening practical activities to leave more time for discussion, to reducing costs and waste, these benefits are many and varied. This publication is designed for teachers and technicians across secondary and further education. Whether you are a student teacher or an experienced Head of Department, whether a new or senior technician, there is something here for you. We hope that the themes will resonate with your practice and that the ideas will inspire further development of your thinking. Perhaps even enthusiastic students might be interested. The ideas and activities are provided as a starting point. Trial and improvement, experimentation, and just trying something out to see if it works, are as much part of the philosophy of microscale chemistry as laboratory-based research.
A dedicated micro-site is available at www.millgatehouse.co.uk/microscalechemistry where additional ideas and procedures are available.
I am so grateful to Sarah Longshaw and ASE for asking David and me to bring this book together. I am conscious of my age. I hope that David, Sarah and all the fantastic (though sometimes) under-valued technicians and teachers who enjoy teaching from observable macro events seen in Petri dishes and puddles continue to promote novel ideas in practical chemistry.
https://www.millgatehouse.co.uk/product/understanding-chemistry-through-microscale-practical-work/
Understanding chemistry through microscale practical work is a guide to, an explanation of and we hope an inspiration for the microscale technique. It provides an explanation of where and how microscale techniques can be incorporated into practical work, outlining suggested activities and extensions. It also discusses pedagogy and how using microscale can help students to learn and understand the chemistry that they are being taught. It is for all educators, regardless of experience, but more importantly, it is for their students.
Microscale chemistry activities offer a way of carrying out practical work that provides many benefits. From adding variety to the practical curriculum, to providing safer ways of achieving results, to shortening practical activities to leave more time for discussion, to reducing costs and waste, these benefits are many and varied. This publication is designed for teachers and technicians across secondary and further education. Whether you are a student teacher or an experienced Head of Department, whether a new or senior technician, there is something here for you. We hope that the themes will resonate with your practice and that the ideas will inspire further development of your thinking. Perhaps even enthusiastic students might be interested. The ideas and activities are provided as a starting point. Trial and improvement, experimentation, and just trying something out to see if it works, are as much part of the philosophy of microscale chemistry as laboratory-based research.
A dedicated micro-site is available at www.millgatehouse.co.uk/microscalechemistry where additional ideas and procedures are available.
I am so grateful to Sarah Longshaw and ASE for asking David and me to bring this book together. I am conscious of my age. I hope that David, Sarah and all the fantastic (though sometimes) under-valued technicians and teachers who enjoy teaching from observable macro events seen in Petri dishes and puddles continue to promote novel ideas in practical chemistry.
Royal Society of Chemistry Award
On November 23 2021, I received notification of the Excellence in Secondary and Further Education Prize for significant and sustained contributions to the development and promotion of safe practical resources for teachers worldwide, especially in the field of microscale chemistry.
It was a wonderful suprise
I had to provide a video. So here is 2 minutes of micro-wow moments.
It was a wonderful suprise
I had to provide a video. So here is 2 minutes of micro-wow moments.
The activities which are described in this website are designed to add variety to practical work in schools, not to replace the traditional methods. They also offer something extra such as better classroom control, increased safety, quicker procedures and the underpinning of the essential concepts required to improve the understanding of chemical changes at the atomic level; interpreting the visible with the invisible. They also carry a strong green message. The Video below describes some of the activities.
Publication in the Journal of Chemical Education
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Thank you to Bruce Mattson, Eric Villa and Jess Gunn in forging ahead finally achieving publication in the Journal of Chemical Eduacation
J. Chem. Educ., 2019, 96 (5), pp 951–954 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.8b00563 There is also a discussion on this on https://microchemuk.weebly.com/2-blog-is-this-supposed-to-happen/visualising-how-chemistry-works |
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"I was so focussed and drawn into the chemistry I was observing"
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"Chemistry demos that are bigger on the inside than the outside"
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"In a little, you can see a lot"
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I cannot praise and thank too highly the work of the CLEAPSS senior technician, Mary Owen BSc, who has designed equipment based on my original ideas and suggestions and also Kay Stephenson FRSC, who also works at CLEAPSS and supplies me with problems to solve and designs many of the worksheets. David Paterson has now contributed with integrated instruction sheets which are disgned to reduce loasd on the short term woking memory.
The work of Professor Bruce Mattson at Creighton University (http://tinyurl.com/kwayszd) and John Bradley (http://tinyurl.com/lvny94y) in South Africa was a source of inspiration to me in this field. I have since used contacts from all over the world to improve microscale chemistry for use in UK schools.
I am pleased to say that they are now being included in UK Examination exemplar experiments for assing skills.
I have written for Royal Chemical Society’ Education in Chemistry journal[i], the Association for Science Education[ii] and the Journal of Chemical Education [iii]
[i] http://www.rsc.org/education/eic/issues/2012May/microscale-chemistry-revisited.asp
[ii] School Science Review, Association for Science Education, March 2011, 92(340)
[iii] Visualizing Dissolution, Ion Mobility, and Precipitation through a Low-Cost, Rapid-Reaction Activity Introducing Microscale Precipitation Chemistry