SAN ANTONIO – Through this pandemic teachers across the world have had to adapt to effectively teach their students.
Schools around the country and in San Antonio have gone both virtual and hybrid, so exactly how does that work with say, science experiments?
Kenny Hoang is a chemistry teacher at Saint Mary’s Hall who has had to adapt to keep his students learning. The entire pandemic has been a test of how to shift, adapt and thrive.
“What ends up happening (in this experiment) is that the pressure on, inside is less than on the outside. And so what happens is the canyons up crushing,” Kenny Hoang said.
So when it comes to chemistry, that meant at home experiments.
“We can change the lab so that it would end up so that they could also do them at home. We looked for materials that they would normally have, things they could get from the grocery store if they could get there. And we changed the lab so that they’re able to do it without the normal laboratory equipment,” Huong said.
But it hasn’t always been easy. So Mr. Hoang has had to work hard and go above and beyond.
“We would make little kits for them and they would come to school and pick them up so that they can work on them at home,” Hoang said.
Hoang was, however, able to keep his students engaged, active and learning and he is now an award winner.
“The award that I got recently was from the Texas Biomedical Research Forum, and it gave me a grant so that I could do a project with my students next year,” Hoang said.
The purpose of his project is to make sure students can see chemistry outside of the classroom and see how it can be put to use in a real world sense.
“We’re looking at chemistry and a viewpoint that is applicable to the environment. So we’re going to be looking at the different things inside of water that causes things to grow or not be very healthy,” Hoang said.