Resumen de Transmuted Labs
This article describes a first year high school chemistry lab program which its author has developed over the past fifteen years. It features laboratory exercises that have have been altered ("transmuted") so that students may be evaluated on the accuracy of their work. For example, a traditional lab may ask that students determine the amount of product obtained from a reaction and compare it to theoretical value. In its transmuted form this lab would require that students either deduce the mass of a reactant from a measured mass of product, or perhaps predict the mass of product from a known mass of reactant. The author reports that lab exercises transmuted in this way work well with beginning students because the labs 1) make immediate sense to scientifically unsophisticated students, 2) challenge students to do their best work, 3) motivate by enlisting students' desires for social recognition, and 4) appeal to students' love of games and play.
