Stoichiometry by the Recipe Method: SBR
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Stoichiometry by the Recipe Method: SBR
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Introduction: There is an area of chemistry which deals with the question of How Much. Chemists call this topic stoichiometry. If you know the amount of any ingredient in a chemical reaction, you will be able to determine how much of every other component in the equation will be needed or made. This is going to sound like an infomercial. This web page is a tutorial using that uses a non-traditional approach to solving stoichiometry problems. As of March 2005, Harold Jensen, the chemical Historian for the Journal of Chemical education knows of no introductory textbook ever written that uses this approach. (For comments on what the experts who have evaluated this page have said, click here) If you pick up almost any text book written in the past two centuries, the method used to teach this topic is almost always identical. This topic is toxic to many students. Many students experience difficulty with this topic - I sure did. Most of you hope that good work in other sections and lots of extra-credit will salvage a good grade. Doctor wannabes take note-- on the 1983 MCAT test to get into medical school, there were at least 6 stoichiometry problems out of 50: 3 were of the formula type and 3 were the equation type. As a biologist who was drafted into teaching chemistry in the Fred Flinstone era of 1979, I searched for an easier, more understandable approach to this topic. Finding none, this approach - Stoichiometry by the Recipe or SBR - was devised. There are two basic goals: to relate stoichiometry to something you can understand, and to make the math as simple as possible while still enabling you to solve high level problems. My students have encouraged me to make this web page. Just as tennis shoes have changed in the past twenty years, I hope that the teaching of this topic will change in the next 20 years. Most importantly, Professor George Bodner of Purdue University says that SBR works in producing correct answers. I believe, and have testimonials from people- nursing students, college instructors, and home schoolers - who have discovered this web page, that the method works. All equation stoichiometry problems from the simplest to limiting reactant (most difficult) will be extremely easy. Students who use this approach will learn how to solve these problems faster, with understanding, and with better grades than those who learned the old way. Web Page Design The page was designed with Microsoft Front Page 98 and appears to work best using Internet Explorer. Since it is mainly text based, it should work with most other browsers. The page is divided into a student tutorial and a teacher's notes section. Additionally, there are three worksheet pages to accompany this site Furthermore, The teacher section (which is open for students to view):
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Copyright (c) John Brodemus, 1995-2005. Visitors This page was last updated: 02/28/05 11:37 PM |
