Teaching Strategies & Study Skills Research Card

Two diagrams may look very different, but ultimately say the same thing. See how Mechanisms can get your students thinking critically about how arrow pushing mechanisms relate to electron movement.

Using a diagram to justify an inference is something scientist do every day. Help your students engage in this practice as they explore aromaticity, acidity in this Flash Point!

"Learning all the ways that chemists draw molecules is like learning a foreign language. Exercise your students’ chemistry vocabulary and grammar with this diagram translation activity!"

Chemists have developed their own symbolic language to communicate about what happens at the molecular level. Students need to learn this language and become fluent very quickly. See how you can use Mechanisms to help students translate between equivalent depictions of organic molecules that they're certain to encounter in class and their textbooks.

It's not always obvious to students how structural changes of a molecule relate to more abstract concepts like energy. In this Flash Point we talk about one way you can integrate Mechanisms in your classroom to support students as they connect steps in a mechanism with energy coordinate diagrams.