Heterogeneous catalysis plays an important role in many chemical reactions, especially those applied in industrial processes, and therefore, its theoretical foundations are introduced not only to students majoring in chemical engineering or catalysis but also as part of general chemistry courses. The consideration of catalytic activity of various solids and mechanisms of catalytic reactions requires the introduction of the concept of an active site, which together with the catalyst specific surface area are discussed as key parameters controlling the reaction rate. There are many known demonstrations of heterogeneous catalysis phenomena that can be performed live in a lecture hall, but all of them focus only on the general idea of catalytic processes and are not suitable for quantitative analysis. Therefore, herein we present a simple demonstration of the influence of the specific surface area of a catalyst on the rate of a catalytic reaction. This demonstration is based on a model reaction of hydrogen peroxide decomposition catalyzed by cobalt spinel (Co₃O₄) calcined at various temperatures. The differences in reaction rates can be monitored visually, and the obtained data can be used directly for a simple kinetic analysis, including comparison of numerical values of the reaction rate constants.

The COVID-19 lockout situation affected people all over the world. Despite all of the disadvantages, this situation offered new experiences and perspectives and pushed education advances forward as never before. Something that seemed to be unreal became a worldwide reality within a few days. Instructors of all subjects at all educational levels moved to a virtual environment instantly. Higher education institutions, universities, and colleges seemed to be fairly prepared for this situation. Unfortunately, primary and secondary schools, especially in eastern and central Europe, never considered distance education as a valuable alternative before, so they did not have software, hardware, and staff prepared for such a situation. Moreover, students’ expectations and dilemmas concerning e-learning were not investigated earlier in the context of obligatory subject education. Moving to the virtual environment was particularly challenging for teachers, who wanted to transfer real class experiences into online lessons since chemistry is based on problems, observations, evidence, and experiments. Often, teachers claimed that they could be more efficient if they had knowledge, skills, and proper equipment to run classes online. This paper presents experiences of secondary chemistry teachers from Slovakia, participants in the IT Academy Project, who earlier, within the framework of the project, were equipped with the necessary skills and tools to run virtual classes, supported with data logging experiments. In this communication, the teachers’ efforts using online experimental practices are described, as well as reflections by their students about the experiences.

Assessment in many Central- and Eastern-European countries is dominated by summative assessment (SA). Simultaneously, researchers and educators from western Europe and the US proclaim the formative assessment (FA) as an important element of the educational process and advise including it into curricula and everyday teachers’ practice. The research presented herein reports an introduction of formative assessment classroom techniques (FACTs) during chemistry lessons at K7 level in Slovakia. In total 202 students participated in the research. They were divided randomly into a control (n=97) and an experimental (n=105) group, and the intervention covered 10 successive lessons. After the intervention, the student’s outcomes were compared using the test checking student’s knowledge and skills according to various domains of Bloom’s revised taxonomy. The results suggested a statistically significant increase in the score of the experimental group, and a detailed analysis revealed that the increase was significant in both lower- and higher-order cognitive skills area. Finally, the students’ reaction on the introduction of formative assessment was studied and showed their positive attitude towards the introduced method. Keywords: chemical education, formative assessment classroom techniques, higher-order cognitive skills, secondary school.

The development of the Internet, communication technologies and teaching methods creates new opportunities for the modernisation of academic classes. Many studies on the application of new educational models indicate that they are both more effective and preferred by students over classical approaches. Additionally, combining various education methods and didactic tools is a common approach, ensuring a high degree of flexibility in the courses and the ability to satisfy the expectations and needs of students with various inclinations, learning styles and intelligence types. In this study, an attempt was made to determine the effects of blended learning on the outcomes of biophysics students attending a general chemistry course. The blended learning model applied covered a combination of classically organised classes, flipped classes, and elements of distance learning supplemented with various multimedia resources. The study had a quantitative character and involved analysis of variance for comparison of student cohorts taking the course in classical and in modernised forms. The study was run for five consecutive years and covered 98 students. The obtained results indicated a statistically significant increase in the students' outcomes after the classes were modernised.

The new Polish science curriculum was launched in 2008 and is currently being implemented in upper secondary schools. The new general objectives of education, and students’ key competences that should be developed during science classes were defined in this document. The presented competences are in line with those that might be developed by Inquiry Based Science Education (IBSE). IBSE is currently a popular instructional method in many countries and it is being strongly promoted by the European Union. Unfortunately, most of the European Union member countries don’t have national strategies in place to support the teachers responsible for implementing IBSE. In the article, a programme of science teacher training course which outline the basics of IBSE techniques was introduced. These course have been developed for polish science teachers basing on the Teachers Education Programme developed within the ESTABLISH project. The effect of the training on the attitude of Polish teachers to IBSE and the impact of training on the perception of selected aspects of IBSE was studied. The research was based on a survey questionnaire conducted among participants of the course before and after the training. The results show current position and degree of implementation of IBSE in Polish schools and the positive and negative factors affecting introduction IBSE into school practice