WUWM's Emily Files visits the virtual classroom of a Milwaukee high school chemistry teacher.

Many schools in Milwaukee have spent the entire first half of the school year online, as a precaution against the coronavirus. WUWM has been visiting virtual classrooms to see how teachers are adapting.

McKenzie King, a chemistry teacher at Carmen Southeast High School in Milwaukee, says some learning experiences are impossible to recreate virtually. Right now, shes teaching her students about chemical compounds. Its usually one of her favorite units.

In the classroom, we just like throw out 16 various substances and kids are moving around the classroom and trying to test them and notice different patterns, King says. So theyll melt them and see what temperature it melts at, or dissolve them in water, conduct electricity.

Hands-on labs normally make up the bulk of Kings chemistry class. But she cant do that when students are learning from home.

The whole point of chemistry, and science in general, is applying it to the real world. But now were cut off from the real world, King says. Its just one of those things, at the end of day its not going to be as successful. Kids might not be able to answer Why? Why are we doing this? Because its not as impactful.

In one recent Zoom class with her sixth period tenth graders, King was teaching about the properties of sugar and salt.

Right now we just want to see can sugar, when its dissolved in water, conduct electricity? Can salt? And can water just do it by itself?" she asks.

Since they cant do in-person experiments, King uses a virtual simulation, where you can click a picture of sugar or salt, add to water, and see if it conducts electricity.

Alright so were putting the connectivity meter in ta da! The salt water does conduct electricity, lighting up a light bulb in the computer simulation.

Whoa! Is that light bulb on? Jennifer Bennett, a paraprofessional and Kings teaching partner, responds.

The students react too, but in the Zoom chat box. For most of the class, her students keep their microphones muted and cameras off. King says, it does feel demoralizing sometimes to look at all the black boxes.

We had more cameras at the beginning of school, King says. I think kids being kids, theyre testing out what theyre comfortable with. And if the majority of people have their cameras off, theyre not going to opt into doing that.

But, King says, you have to pick your battles. And she doesnt want to goad her students into keeping their cameras on when they are participating in other ways.

You have to frame, whats a realistic expectation or whats a win? King says. If 20 out of 23 students are responding in the chat frequently throughout the entire class, thats a win. Theyre there, theyre learning. Do I prefer to know what they look like? Absolutely.

You can tell that King and Bennett are building relationships with students despite the limitations of the chat box. During one class, King asks students silly questions while theyre waiting for others to finish their work.

If you saw Ms. Bennett in the grocery store, do you say hello or do you just dip? King asks. Some of the students jokingly respond that they would ignore Bennett if they saw her in public.

Im not really a science fan, but I can say that chemistry isnt bad, says Karla, a sophomore at Carmen and one of Kings students. Actually Ms. King and Ms. Bennett make it fun, thats why I like chemistry.

Karla says online learning is stressful sometimes because she has three younger siblings also in virtual school who she helps. Im kinda tired of being at home all day, doing nothing other than school, she says.

That feeling is shared by teachers.

The weight of virtual learning, I feel like, is a little more draining because the joys of in-person learning are not truly present, King says. You have to look for them and reframe them just like your teaching. So if I felt tired in-person, I definitely feel fatigued right now.

King says, she still likes her job but its because the fulfillment of working with students outweighs the many challenges of virtual teaching.

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Virtual Classroom Series: Teaching High School Chemistry Without Hands-On Experiments - WUWM