Five of the students from my AP Chemistry class participated in the Avery Ashdown High School Chemistry Examination Contest in Boston yesterday. The contest is a 90-question chemistry exam, and is the first round of qualifying exams for the US Chemistry Olympiad team. (Funny aside: there was a choral festival going on at the high school yesterday. Several choruses from various high schools were arriving while we met in the parking lot. One of them quipped, “Who the hell gets up on a Saturday morning to sing at 8:55am?” I replied, “Would you rather get up on a Saturday morning to take a chemistry test at 8:55am? That’s what these kids are doing (indicating my students).”)
Last year, one of my Belmont kids (who is probably the smartest kid I’ve taught in my career so far) received an honorable mention, but missed qualifying for the next round by one point. This means I don’t expect any of this year’s kids to make the next round, but I’m glad they had the opportunity to try. They enjoyed it, partly because it was an opportunity to compete against kids from other schools in a subject they’re interested in, and partly because it was a chance for some of my AP Chem kids to do something chemistry-related together. (The class has probably the best dynamic of any class I’ve taught. It has 13 kids, all with very strong personalities, and all of whom get along well, tease each other good-naturedly, and love learning. I’ve had several wonderful classes over the years, but this one is probably the one I’ll miss the most after they graduate.)
ETA: I also ended up proctoring the section of the Ashdown exam–I figured that if I was already planning to be there, I might as well help out. I did some of my usual joking around as I gave the instructions. “Is there anyone here who doesn’t already know how to fill out a Scantron (fill-in-the-bubbles) form? No? Great. Then we can skip that part. Write the name of your school where it says ‘Subject,’ and your test number where it says ‘Date’.” A student asked “What should we write for where it says ‘Period’?” I replied, “‘ic Table’.”
I also drew an xkcd-style stick figure on the board announcing the number of minutes left, using various geeky things like 60(5) minutes left, 4.0 × 101 minutes left, etc. At the 5-minute mark, I added a Bunsen burner under the stick figure and changed it to “OMG! Only 5 minutes left! Start guessing!” (There was no penalty for wrong answers.) Quite a few of the students taking the exam (including my own students) enjoyed the humor as a tension-reducer.
After the exam, I took the kids out to lunch before driving them back to Waltham. The lunch was a chance to just sit and talk with a great group of high school kids without having to have an agenda for the discussion. This is the kind of thing that really needs to happen more often.
