VCE Chemistry teacher in Melbourne, Australia
Here is the unofficial annotated edition of the 2024 VCAA periodic table. It s not necessary to annotate the entire 2024 data book because it s comprehensive enough already. This is the periodic table I ll be using with my Pre-VCE students. Feel free to share this with your colleagues and students just like the 2019 and 2021 Continue reading Annotated VCAA Periodic Table – 2024 Edition
VCE results are out! Some schools shine spectacularly in one or two VCE subjects compared to all their other VCE subjects. For Mentone Girls , it s Psychology. For Eltham, it s VisComm and Literature. For Fintona, it s Accounting and Economics. Is your school on the list? The percentages show the proportion of reported VCE study scores ≥40 Continue reading List of schools that were specifically…
VCE results are out! As usual, the VCAA has released the list of students who opted to have their name featured in the list of high achievers. I downloaded the dataset and counted how many study scores ≥40 each Victorian school had in each subject. For each school, I them summed the number of 40+ Continue reading Maths-to-English ratios in 130 Victorian Schools (2022 VCE data)
Some Chapters in VCE Chemistry Units 1 and 2 are more useful than others when for Units 3 and 4. Organic chemistry and redox dominate the Units 3 and 4 course while ionic bonding and metallic bonding barely feature at all. I made this chart so students know which chapters of Heinemann Chemistry 1 are Continue reading Which Chapters of Heinemann Chemistry 1 are most essential for VCE Chemistry…
Here it is the Kennedy College VCE Chemistry Trial Written Examination for 2022. This trial examination is designed to test the key mistakes that students make year after year in the real examination based on my experience as a teacher. Warning: every question in this trial examination is difficult.
The Great Prediction Competition 2022 launches today. Make accurate predictions about weather, the economy and public health for Science Week 2022. Predictions must be made before 9am on Monday August 1st 2022. Winners will be announced at the end of Science Week 2022 (Sunday August 21st 2022).
The VCE/VET Statistics dashboard I created last year has now been updated with the latest 2021 VCE/VET result data. Click here to access the VCE/VET Statistics Dashboard.
Try this VCAA Chemistry Question 9 collection. Question 9 is usually about experimental design. All these questions are original past VCAA Chemistry Question 9 (experimental design questions) from the current study design. Relevant pages from VCAA s examination reports are linked below. Note that the first question in this collection is question 8 because the 2018 Continue reading VCE Chemistry…
Some multiple choice questions (approximately 2 out of every 30) are tricky that is, they contain a distractor that students choose more frequently than the correct answer. This collection of 10 multiple choice questions is entirely comprised of questions where students did worse than guessing (in other words, 25% of students chose the correct Continue reading Try the Most Difficult MCQ that VCAA…
My Kennedy College students worked tirelessly to climb to the top of the small schools (≤50 students) leaderboard for the Education Perfect Science Championships 2021. The competition is open to schools of any size in Australia and New Zealand. We came first out fo 248 small schools who participated. I m very proud of their achievement. Continue reading Kennedy College students came 1st out of 248…
The pandemic turned VCE Chemistry upside-down. Stoichiometry, traditionally a difficult topic, was the best-answered of all. Chromatography, traditionally an easy topic, was the most difficult for the class of 2020. Most noticeable is the increase in difficult topics highlighted red in the chart above. (For a comparison with the 2013 2014 VCE Chemistry written Continue reading VCE Chemistry…
I made a free VCE/VET Statistics Dashboard. Find insights into your favourite subjects here. Data was scraped from VCAA and VTAC using open-source Python. #Python #dataviz The Boys vs Girls tab and the Dropout Statistics pages are most interesting. Why are girls 5.5x more than boys likely to drop out of VCE LOTE Arabic?
Original code is here: https://colab.research.google.com/drive/1XFS4Kq5nsYPs5YQIPZrP3q3ehKDrnDgv?usp=sharing If you re new to Python, go to the menu bar and click Runtime Run all. Then wait for around 20 minutes while this script scrapes data from the VCAA and generates an interactive scatterplot for you. When it s done, there will be some interesting data files available for download from…
This chart shows the percentage of students with a top 100 Asian surname among high-achieving VCE students (≥2 study scores ≥40) by subject with EAL students excluded from the analysis. The proportion of high-achievers with Asian surnames was highest in the following subjects: Specialist Maths, Maths Methods, Physics, Chemistry, Accounting and English Language. Conversely, the Continue reading…
In this analysis, I defined high-achieving students as those who achieve at least 2 study scores ≥40. I then compared this with enrolment data to see how their subject choices differed from that of all students (from VCAA statistics). Choosing these subjects doesn t guarantee you a high grade. But it does provide some interesting insight Continue reading High-achieving VCE students are more likely…
The data book contains a wealth of information that s hidden in plain sight. If you know how to read the data book properly, you can: Never lose marks again for not knowing the states of fuels or combustion products Know how to substitute metric prefixes in calculations Learn that amino acids with primary amide side Continue reading All-new Annotated VCE Chemistry Data Book for 2021 Chemistry…
With schools closed due to COVID-19, it can be difficult to stay on track with your VCE studies. That s why I m hosting my first VCE Chemistry study group for Year 11 students on Zoom this Saturday. We ll work through a selected set of practice questions for VCE Chemistry Unit 1 until we finish them all, Continue reading VCE Chemistry Study Group starts Saturday May 9th 2020 via Zoom
COVID-19 is having an immense impact on stress and anxiety levels: Mentions of the virus were up 605% in Sanvello last week, and we’re seeing nearly a third more user sign-ups this quarter than last. There are over 3 million users of Sanvello, the #1 app for stress and anxiety, but there are so many more that could use our help right now. So, we’re Continue reading Anxious? Sanvello is giving all…
Writing is hard. That s why I enlisted the help of GPT-2, the world-famous writing robot, to write this travel guide to our beautiful planet. To create this masterpiece, I first asked GPT-2 to list its favourite places on Earth. It listed 20 locations (and numbered them from 1 to 21 because it omitted number 13), Continue reading Earth: The first travel guide written entirely by a machine
Writing is hard. That s why I enlisted GPT-2, the world-famous AI-powered writing robot, to write me a book overnight while I slept. After being trained by reading millions of real English-language articles on the internet spanning a wide range of genres, I left the machine running overnight to write me a book. I didn t ask Continue reading Humanity: the first self-help book written entirely by a…
Examination reports are very useful but most students don t read them. I ve scoured the examination reports from 2017, 2018 and 2019 and analysed how many marks were awarded for each topic of the VCE Chemistry course, and recorded what percentage of students got these right. As usual, this revealed that VCAA asks more questions on Continue reading VCE Chemistry written examination paper analysis…
Students obsess over significant figures and mole calculations but these are only worth 1 and 16 marks, respectively in the final written examination. Over two-thirds of the marks in the VCE Chemistry written examination are awarded for written responses where calculations are not necessary. Tip for students: focus on perfecting your written responses such as Continue reading Focus on perfecting…
Plotting a graph of ΔATAR/study score vs ATAR gives an interesting curve: students whose ATARs are around 50 have the most to gain from an additional study score point. Above about 90, the incremental ATAR gain from a single extra study point is probably below the margin of error given the way in which ATARs Continue reading Race to the top: the higher your ATAR, the more difficult it is to…
This book is a collection of lies we taught to our Year 12 Chemistry students in their graduation year. The lies include well-meaning simplifications of the truth, mistakes in the textbook, and, in a few extreme cases, blatant falsehoods. This book isn t a criticism of the VCE Chemistry course at all. In fact, I wrote Continue reading I revamped this classic for the VCE Chemistry study design.…
NOTE: This entire post was written by GPT-2, an artificial intelligence writing robot. The opinions in this post are not necessarily my own. I asked GPT-2 to write about 26 topical issues, each beginning with a different letter of the alphabet. The bold text was the initial prompt that I fed into the robot and Continue reading I asked a robot to write about 26 topical issues. Here s what it wrote.
The essay below was written by GPT-2, an AI writing bot. I typed the first sentence in blue and the machine wrote the entire rest of the essay. Chemophobia is defined as the irrational fear of compounds perceived as synthetic. Some people feel like they are being sprayed with an unknown chemical, and their eyes, nose, Continue reading This essay was written by AI (artificial intelligence)
My fourth edition of Fighting Chemophobia is now available on Amazon.com. This edition is paperback and black-and-white throughout hence the low price. Chemophobia is an irrational fear of chemicals. It includes the fear of aluminium in vaccines, methylparaben preservative in cosmetics and formaldehyde residue in shampoo. Since the early 1990s, advances in toxicology have allowed Continue reading…
I ve had the pleasure of hosting the second season of Sincerely, Chemicals. It s just me and a camera this time. Very simple. Subscribe to the Sincerely, Chemicals YouTube channel to receive a new video each week.
Bisphenol A, or BPA, is used to line food cans and also to make strong plastic baby bottles. Eating large amounts of canned food – particularly canned soups or drinking hot liquids from baby bottles – can result in elevated amounts of BPA being detected in people’s urine. BPA acts as an estrogen mimic Continue reading Why was Bisphenol A (BPA) discontinued in baby bottles?
Each year, the VCAA subtly upgrades the VCE Chemistry data book. Each year, I print it and annotate it to show students the wealth of useful information hidden within it (most of which, is in plain sight). This year, the VCAA has changed some constants and added some interesting functional groups to the spectroscopy tables. Continue reading Annotated VCE Chemistry data book for the 2019 study…
I started a YouTube channel called Sincerely, Chemicals. It s inspired by the workshops I ve been running since 2017 so you can now review the content at home. Video 2 is below. It s called Are Organic Products Safer? you already know the answer, but play the 2-minute video to find out why. If you like Continue reading Organic is a farming practice
The Naturalness Fallacy is my latest book in the chemophobia series. It s a quick read that introduces the causes, effects and solutions to the chemophobia problem. Download this free book as a PDF here.
After several hurdles, I m happy to announce that Fighting Chemophobia is now available on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle editions for international delivery. Amazon.com and three other independent online book vendors have signed up to stock Fighting Chemophobia. Buy your copy by clicking the links below or search Amazon.com or your Kindle device Continue reading Fighting Chemophobia is now…
There exists a myth that organic fruits and vegetables are healthier because they re free from harmful pesticides. Bruce Ames, one of the key founders of the field of toxicology back in the 1970s, wrote a landmark paper in 1990 called Dietary pesticides (99.99% all natural), in which, he showcased some of the many naturally-occurring pesticides Continue reading Natural pesticides in a cabbage
The second batch of Fighting Chemophobia books are finished! After a long search, we have finally found two great companies for printing and distribution in China. Dianzan design and printing company has laid the book out with great care and precision and turned Fighting Chemophobia into an excellent-quality product in both hardback and paperback Continue reading Second batch of Fighting…
Chemophobia is an irrational fear of chemicals. It includes the fear of sugar in food, formaldehyde in shampoo and aluminium in vaccines. Fitness bloggers, quack doctors and even small cosmetic companies take advantage of these quirks to sell fake-natural products at elevated prices. Almost always, the same people who spread a fear of ‘chemicals’ also Continue reading Signed Copies of Fighting…
Unlike purple and pink pigments, which were rare and expensive enough to be reserved for royalty and high-ranking clergy, yellow pigments were abundant throughout ancient history. Yellow ochre, a powdery mixture of iron oxides, has been used in cave paintings around the world for up to 80,000 years and was still being used by artists Continue reading Aniline Yellow (1861)
The “deficit model” is a widely criticized theory that suggests that people who harbor attitudes of negativity or indifference towards science (in this case, chemistry) do so because they are uninformed about the topic (Chinese: 无知). People’s misinformation might come from a lack of interest, a lack of exposure or an experience of poor science Continue reading The ‘deficit model’ only works half…
Humans are irrational beings. Smoking kills 480,000 people per year in the United States, while an average of 170 lives are lost to terrorism each year in the same country. Counterintuitively, terrorism receives more media attention than smoking despite having a relatively tiny risk because we’re predisposed to fear dangers imposed by other people more Continue reading Our senses are hopeless at…
2013年底，我准备高中有机化学课的时候设计下面的全天然香蕉成份信息图形。 这几年，广告上写的三个关键词有「全天然」、「有机」、「无化学成份」。我想通过这张信息图形告诉大家一切都是化学成份做出来的。大自然生产的化学成份比科学家在实验室里能合成的成份复杂多了。为了简洁我写了几十个组成香蕉的重要成份——还有几千个天然有机化学成份没写上。 全天然香蕉里面有一些成份是有毒性的。但是，因为香蕉里面的剂量极少，所以它们对我们的人体是无害的。大自然对剂量的掌握是非常精准的，自然界中，所有的化学成分都有完美的剂量。这个信息图形的意义是告诉大家： 世界上的一切都是来自化学 大自然生产的化学成份比合成成份还复杂多了 大自然生产的产品（如香蕉）并不纯净，因为有上万种成份在其中 讲毒理学不讲剂量是完全没有道理的 随心分享！
The wines your great-grandchildren might one day drink on Mars will soon be coming to a bottle near you. Ava Winery is a San Francisco-based startup creating wines molecule by molecule, without the need for grapes or fermentation. With complete control over the chemical profile of the product, Ava’s wines can be created safely, sustainably, Continue reading Combatting Chemophobia With Wine
There’s an interesting psychological quirk that makes us yearn for a benevolent, caring Mother Nature that can cure our ailments without any side effects. Academics call it the “naturalness preference” or “biophilia”, and the Norwegians call it “friluftsliv” (literally: free-air-life). Friluftsliv began in 18th century Scandanavia as part of a romantic “back-to-nature” movement for the Continue…
It s been exactly three years since I uploaded the original banana poster. In 2014, I soon followed up with podcasts, radio appearances, press interviews, a T-shirt Store and twelve more fruit ingredient labels. I ve done six more customised fruit ingredients labels for private clients. The images have since appeared in textbooks, corporate promotional material, YouTube videos, T-shirts, Continue…
Inspired by the formula booklets used by VCE Physics and VCE Maths Methods, here’s an 8-page Chemistry formula booklet you can use for your Year 11 and 12 Chemistry assignments. This custom-made booklet is a collection of reliable formulae that I have been using to answer VCE Chemistry questions while teaching and tutoring around Melbourne. There are 76 formulae on Continue reading Get your…
This post concludes the Periodic Table Smoothie experiment. Recall that we ve just finished adding one mole of nitrogen gas and created a bizarre boron polymer at the bottom of our vessel. The temperature was 350 °C and the pressure in our vessel was 891 kPa. Today, we re going to add 1.00 mole of oxygen gas, stand back Continue reading Let s add oxygen, fluorine and neon gases
This book contains 50 lies taught in the VCE Chemistry course. These lies include well-meaning simplifications of the truth, mistakes in the textbook, and, in a few extreme cases, blatant falsehoods. This book isn’t a criticism of the VCE Chemistry course at all. In fact, I just want to highlight the sheer complexity of Chemistry Continue reading We Lied To You
The content you’re learning now is probably not as true as it seems. Chemistry is a set of models that explain the macro level sometimes at the expense of detail. The more you study Chemistry, the more precise these models become, and they’ll gradually enlighten you with a newfound clarity about the inner workings of Continue reading Pre-order my second book We Lied To You here
This book is a collection of common mistakes in VCE Chemistry and how to avoid them. It comes from years of marking student SACs and exam papers, and from reading Examination Reports from the VCAA as well. It’s free of charge, very informative, and very concise. Click here to download the FREE book.
Click to download REDOX RULES posters for VCE Chemistry What s redox? We never learned that! Yes, you did. I use the term redox to refer to all of the following chapters in Heinemann Chemistry 2, which you will have learned at the end of Term 3 (September). Chapter 26: Redox (revision of Year 11) Chapter Continue reading Redox Rules
In 1808, a massive volcano erupted somewhere on Earth. So large was the eruption that it bellowed sulfate particles into the atmosphere that caused significant global cooling in the years that followed (Guevara-Murua 2014). Despite its gargantuan size, nobody to this day has been able to locate the volcano or find any direct eyewitness accounts of Continue reading Mystery supervolcano is at the…