A simple, repeatable process can help students build those habits:

Read & Deconstruct → Visualize → Identify the Chemistry → Plan → Execute & Verify

REAL CHEM uses scaffolded practice, real-world data, active learning, and personalized feedback to give students opportunities to apply what they’re learning and build confidence along the way.

With practice, students can begin to recognize the thinking patterns behind different types of chemistry problems and carry those strategies into new situations.

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Take a cut apple. Leave it on the counter for a few minutes, and the surface starts to turn brown.

Why?

Cutting the apple exposes compounds inside its cells to oxygen. Enzymes help drive reactions that produce brown-colored compounds, a process called enzymatic browning.

That simple observation can become a much bigger chemistry question: What happens if you change the temperature? The pH? The amount of oxygen? The surface area?

Students can make a prediction, test one variable, collect observations, and use chemistry to explain what they see.

Sometimes a good chemistry investigation starts with something sitting in the kitchen.

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Maybe that’s a new way to introduce a difficult concept. A different kind of practice before an exam. A quick look at where students are getting stuck. Or a resource that gives them another way to work through a problem.

We pulled together six ideas from REAL CHEM that you can use throughout the semester, from real-world explorations and cinematic videos to scaffolded practice, analytics, and a digital online tutor.

Envision your own course and students at your desks. Try out the resources that feel right to you!

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In this video, Ariel Anbar, professor and isotope geochemist at Arizona State University, takes us inside the atomic nucleus to explore the delicate balance between protons and neutrons, then explains what happens when that balance tips too far.

Using carbon isotopes and the chart of the nuclides, he explains the “valley of stability,” what happens when a nucleus falls outside it, and how radioactive decay moves unstable nuclei toward a more stable state.

Watch the full lesson at realchem.org to see what really goes on inside radioactive isotopes.

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The discoveries below range from the ozone layer to the insulin in a pharmacy today:

• Mario Molina traced stratospheric ozone loss to chlorine radicals from CFCs and shared the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
• Luis Federico Leloir discovered sugar nucleotides and won the 1970 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
• Luis Miramontes completed the first synthesis of an orally active progestin at age 26
• Lydia Villa-Komaroff was the first author on the 1978 paper showing bacteria could be engineered to make proinsulin
• Norma Alcantar turns cactus mucilage into a water treatment that binds arsenic and bacteria

Their work shows up in kinetics, metabolism, functional groups, recombinant DNA, and colloid chemistry. Swipe through for the story behind each one.

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Temperature and pH help explain why the same tea can feel so different.

In this lesson, Clarice Phelps, nuclear chemist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, explores the chemistry behind temperature, pH, acids, bases, and proton transfer, and how these concepts connect to the world around us.

While temperature changes the energy and motion of molecules, pH tells us about the balance of protons in a solution. Together, these properties shape everything from the taste of your tea to the health of ecosystems and the success of industrial processes.

Because chemistry is happening everywhere, even in your teacup. Watch the full explanation at realchem.org.

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In this tutorial video, cobalt(II) nitrate dissolves in water to form a pink aqua cobalt complex.

Adding hydrochloric acid introduces chloride ions. Then, those ions interact with the complex, and a new chlorocobalt species forms while the color shifts in front of you. The underlying chemistry is rich, and the demonstration gives students a foothold before the math arrives.

The principle it illustrates is Le Chatelier’s:
• Add a reactant and the system shifts right, toward products
• Add a product, and it shifts left, toward reactants
• Concentration and temperature both give students a lever they can reason through

Watch the full video at realchem.org.

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Biodiversity Month reminds us that connecting chemistry to what matters to students can motivate them to tackle challenging concepts and abstract problems with greater interest and understanding.

What local environmental examples do you bring into your general chemistry course, and which concepts do they help students understand?

To bring these connections into your course, visit realchem.org and get access to all of REAL CHEM’s Explorations.

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Start with career, because chemistry sits at the front of more paths than students might realize:

✅ Nursing and health professions, where dosage math and pH come up daily
✅ Cosmetic science, a growing field built on formulation and safety testing
✅ Environmental work, from water quality monitoring to remediation
✅ Emergency response, where reaction rates shape evacuation decisions

Then, widen it. Students may have an interest in the food they cook, the sport they play, or the medication a parent takes. (And there’s chemistry there, too!)

General chemistry can be challenging, and students who hold on to a personal motivation to keep studying are the ones who push through that stretch.

Instructors, what question gets your students talking about why chemistry matters to them? Share your go-to prompt in the comments!

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On September 22, the Northern Hemisphere reaches the September equinox, when the Sun crosses the celestial equator moving southward. But the science behind the season is even more interesting.

For college instructors, the equinox is a perfect opportunity to turn something students experience every year into an investigation of planetary science.

NASA offers free astronomy resources specifically designed for introductory space science and Astro-101 courses, including activities that use authentic scientific data.

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