News Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) Resources Workshop in NUI Galway

Dr Veronica McCauley, Lecturer in Science Education, organised a Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) event in the School of Education, NUI Galway to showcase an abundance of online teaching resources for teachers.  John O’Donoghue (Trinity College Dublin), National Education Coordinators for the RSC led this event.

Local science teachers from the Galway branch of the Irish Science Teacher's Association (ISTA) network were invited to join School of Education student science teachers from the Professional Masters of Education (PME) programme.  

The Royal Society of Chemistry provide a wealth of teaching resources as well as some practical ideas for teaching various topics.  In this 90 minute workshop teachers learned how to use some of the freely available RSC resources in their teaching, with time to discuss each topic openly. This year there was a discussion around the use of UV beads to measure the rate of reaction at Junior Cycle level.  A simple, clean experiment that is ideal for Junior Cycle students was carried out by attendees as part of some 'hands on' experience to support guided inquiry.

This workshop was aimed at everyone from trainee to experienced teachers and was interactive and informal.  Both Junior and Senior Cycle resources were reviewed on the evening and there was a bundle of freebies for each teacher.