Active Learning Activities

Spinning the Data? Thinking Critically about Maps

Students create choropleth maps to explore how maps can inform, persuade and mislead.

Take it Outside: A Field Trip in Three Acts

This activity serves as a field trip template to engage students with pre, during, and post-visit observations and analysis.

Let Me Draw You a Picture…

Students use visual thinking to diagram / illustrate a subject with the only criteria being they have expert knowledge of it.

Earth History Walk

A self-guided walk exploring how – and why – Earth changed over its 4.6 billion year history.

Drawing to Learn: Doing Science is more Complex that You Think

Students draw a diagram of how they think scientists "do science." These are improved then compared with an expert diagram.

100 Years of Work

This is a jigsaw activity where students map key developments in workplace design over 100 years.

Keeping Up With the Trends

This activity is aimed at getting students to write sound, scientific rationales for observed phenomena.

From Bauhaus to Britney: A Catchall Timeline

Students map key movements in Architecture and Design alongside social, political, artistic, economic, and tech milestones.

Crash Course: Collision Theory

Students use PhET simulation to learn how factors affect reaction rate (collision theory) through hands-on activities

To Pass or Not to Pass: Acting out Membrane Transport

Aim of the activity is to increase students’ understanding of molecules’ movement through the cell membrane.

CLAW At-Home Experiment: Crystallization of Borax

CLAW At-Home Experiment: Organic Chemistry Introduction to Solubility

CLAW At-Home Experiment: Spectrophotometry Using Gatorade

CLAW At-Home Experiment: Volumetric Analysis of Household Acid with Cabbage Juice

CLAW At-Home Experiment: Paper Chromatography of Food Dyes and Ink

CLAW At-Home Experiment: Colligative Properties

CLAW At-Home Experiment: Activation Energy in Chemical Kinetics

CLAW At-Home Experiment: The Rate Law in Chemical Kinetics Using Blue Dye

Solving World Issues: One Smartphone at a Time

The purpose of this activity is to familiarize students with the potential of online tools for problem-solving.

Name that Molecule! / Nommez cette Molécule!

Building Effective Teams

The Matching Game

Students use a matching game to pair chemical compounds and their characteristics using a set of question cards.

The Right Tool for the Right Job

This activity encourages students to consider the nature of a chemistry problem and to identify the tools to solve it.

Sustainability Development Plan (Part 1 and Part 2)

In this activity, students learn to define sustainability and apply this to a single Montreal neighbourhood.