The Chemistry Departments at both Bob Jones and James Clemens are proud that Madison City students are proficient in laboratory knowledge and skills. In order to grow students to a high level of proficiency in this area, both teams of teachers have created a lab manual for each level of chemistry.
The concept of creating a manual tailored to the Alabama College and Career Ready Standards was first encourage by Mr. Daniel Elegante. He recognized the value of teacher collaboration in creating common experiences for all Madison City chemistry students. When James Clemens opened in 2012, the valuable use of common lab experiences was continued.
The lab manuals are a compilation of activities from a variety of sources. This could include: Alabama Science in Motion, A+College Ready, National Math and Science Initiative, Flinn Scientific, or teacher created labs. The Chemistry teachers meet at the end of the year or in the summer to reflect on the labs, making edits, deleting some labs, improving details, and enhancing post lab activities. As new teachers are added to staff, their input is included often adding new activities to the lab manual.
After collaboration, the manuals are edited, and then sent to our community partner, The Productivity Center where they are printed and assembled.
Madison City Chemistry teachers are very proud of the lab experiences that are offered to their students. Many graduated students come back from college to tell that they were well prepared for college chemistry lab. In fact many said they performed very similar activities in college chemistry lab as they did in Madison City Chemistry class.
In the 2016 - 17 High School Feedback Report from the University of Auburn, it was noted that college freshman students from a Madison City High school earned a 3.62 grade average in a Fundamentals of Chemistry Lab class while the average grade for all Freshman students enrolled in a Fundamentals of Chemistry Lab class was 3.42. Madison City Chemistry teachers are preparing students for college and career.
photo credits Abby Hancock