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Unit 8.6 The Importance of
Teaching Chemistry
Teachers reflect on their experiences, including what they
believe is required for good teaching in chemistry.
Video program cues: 39:00 — 57:00
Understanding environmental chemistry
"Now, when you’re talking about
chemical bonds’ strength, you can discuss that it is
not an abstract idea but this really matters in terms of
environmental science. That helps you figure out how long
a polluting molecule will hang around in the environment,
whether or not it will be broken down in the atmosphere
or not. When you talk about chemical kinetics, when you
talk about how fast reactions occur between different types
of molecules, you need to know that in order to figure out
whether or not certain processes in the atmosphere are going
to occur. And it doesn’t have to be general big environmental
ideas, it’s just as simple to realize that it is basically
chemistry that’s holding this table together. Knowing
about the bonds, and arrangement of the atoms, is what allows
us to have solid surfaces to work on. Everything in your
daily life rests on chemistry."
Dr. Laurie Geller
National Academy of Sciences
Reading
Dunnivant, F. M.; Moore, A.; Alfano, M. J.; Brzenk, R.;
Buckley, P. T.; Newman, M. E. (2000), 'Journal of Chemical
Education, Vol. 77, No. 12, pp: 1602-1603.
How to teach chemistry
"Because all students in our system
take chemistry, that means every student in Edison High
School is going to need a chemistry credit. Then, we had
an interest in giving some serious consideration to the
way we taught chemistry."
Dr. Leslie Pierce
Thomas Edison High School, Virginia
"We had to rewrite and take all units
and smash them together, and come up with something cohesive
for the entire semester."
Veatta Berry
Thomas Edison High School, Virginia
"We were going over all documentation
and sort of decided at that point six themes that ran through
chemistry, no matter what we were talking about, or what
concept we were talking about: elements and the periodic
table, compounds and bonding, kinetic theory, the mole and
stoichiometry, chemical reactions and solutions. And that
was the inspiration for organizing the units around those
six threads that run through. We just started arguing what
those themes were going to be and we decided that we would
approach information related to these topics, in every unit
we did. By doing the major themes at the same time together
with each other, the kids learn it in an interrelated manner.
So they are not asked to make the connections, they are
making them as they learn the material, so the connections
are there and they are solid."
Caryn Galatis
Thomas Edison High School, Virginia
"As you’re doing a little bit of
solutions, a little bit of mole relationships and a little
bit of periodicity, all at the same time."
Dr. Leslie Pierce
Thomas Edison High School, Virginia
"In the first three units it does, it
seems like such a model. Try to see how kids make the connections.
Somewhere between the third and the fourth unit, it dawned
on me one day, as I was with a group of kids trying to solve
some stoichiometry problems, that these kids are asking
me questions and having discussions with me that I couldn’t
get them to at the end of the course, before."
Caryn Galatis
Thomas Edison High School, Virginia
Reading
Wright, J.C.; Millar, S.B.; Koscuik, S.A.; Penberthy, D.L.;
Williams, P.H.; Wampold, B.E. (1998)' A Novel Strategy for
Assessing the Effects of Curriculum Reform on Student Competence,
'Journal of Chemical Education, Vol. 75, No. 8, pp:
986-992. Examples from teaching
"What we had to do was to keep
the rigor of chemistry but make it more real to them. And
we do so many of our labs, which are basically with household-type
materials. Yes, you could teach almost a full chemistry
course not having to ever order from a chemical supply catalog.
With a few pieces of equipment, you could do a lot of really
major chemistry: most of our labs are now oriented towards
common household materials, we don’t have an enormous
chemical supply budget anymore. And that really ties the
kids in too, because it’s stuff they see every day."
Caryn Galatis
Thomas Edison High School, Virginia
"My kids like stories. Like we talked
about the gas in the Nike air bubble, the sulfur hexafluoride,
and how they needed to change it into nitrogen because it’s
poisonous. And they just love it when you tie it to something,
because a lot of them wear those, that, they do every day."
Lisa Morine
Watkins Mill High School, Maryland
"I had bought the Road Wing Star as
it first came out as a pre-production model… and the
problem was that it kept blowing head gaskets. It has an
aluminum cast engine that has steel bolts holding the head
gaskets together, that expanded and contracted. They always
asked what happened to my car and we kept talking about
it in class, so I got to it a little bit early in the year,
but now I talk about it every year and we go through it,
because it was a big engineering mistake, that cost the
company tons of money. And these things come up all the
time, and anytime you can use an example like that, the
kids understand it. My kids are starting to drive and this
is near their hearts. And the expansion of metals is indeed
a huge problem".
Caryn Galatis
Thomas Edison High School, Virginia
" Once that link is established
through the wallet, it makes it a point of interest. The
ability to discriminate why to buy or choose something or
what does a claim mean is important. A favorite of mine
is organic and chemical-free advertisements, followed closely
by why all those saturated fats have no polyenes in them
and vice versa."
Tom Pratuch,
Annandale High School, Virginia
Links
Reading
Parrill, Abby L. (2000)' Everyday Chemical Reactions: A
Writing Assignment to Promote Synthesis of Concepts and
Relevance in Chemistry, 'Journal of Chemical Education,
Vol. 77, No. 10, pp: 1303-1305.
Discussing chemistry and advertising
Tom Pratuch holds a class discussion about using chemical
concepts in advertising.
Activity
Readings
Editor's Page — Jacobs, M., (1998)' Cheers For Chemical
Companies, 'Chemical & Engineering News, Vol.
76, No. 39, pp:1
Roediger, A. (2000)' Let's Talk about It! Using a Graded
Discussion Procedure to Make Chemistry Real, 'Journal
of Chemical Education, Vol. 77, No. 10, pp: 1305-1306.
Reese, K.M., (1999)' Newscripts, 'Chemical & Engineering
News, Vol. 77, No. 38, pp:96
Cooperation among scientists
"When we made the first tractors from
genetically engineered soy-beans the chemists couldn’t
do that — I, by myself, couldn’t do that. We have
to bring to the table all of the people who contribute to
the different parts of the creative puzzle. You have, sitting
around the table, genetic engineers, food scientists, micro-biologists
who understand biodegradation processes, composite manufacturing
people, who would not let anything above a certain viscosity
come into the room, the chemists who must handle all of
the connectivity issues, the manufacturing chemical engineers
who understand the chemical reactions, all of these people,
need to come to the table. And that’s interesting,
because when that happens, not only has each one a different
part of the puzzle to contribute, but they also have a different
way of interpreting how you think."
Professor Richard Wool
University of Delaware
Link
- Biotechnology and chemistry of soybeans.
Scientific literacy at an early age
"We’ve had third grade clusters
coming through our institute lab, to get trained and isolate
DNA. They actually cut it with restriction enzymes, they
do experiments that I only learned to do as a professor,
because it is a field that didn’t exist before. I think
that kids have a real fascination with that field, not that
the technique was so complicated. We gave them a choice
of isolating DNA from lettuce or from hamburger, and they
chose hamburger. Then, at the end of the class one of the
boys wanted to take the DNA home, and I asked what he wanted
to do with it, and he said that he wanted to go home and
clone a cow. The fundamental understanding of pre-teens
is pretty amazing, so if our educational system improves
to that level, quite often students who go into high school
have wonderful contacts to place this information."
Dr. J. Craig Venter
Former President, Celera Genomics
Readings
Harris, H. H. (1997)' Teaching Secondary School Science:
Strategies for Developing Scientific Literacy, 6th ed. (by
Leslie W. Trowbridge and Rodger W. Bybee), 'Journal of
Chemical Education, Vol. 74, No. 10, pp: 1167.
Ordman, A. B. (1996)' Scientific Literature and Literacy:
A Course of Practical Skills for Undergraduate Science Majors,
'Journal of Chemical Education, Vol. 73, No. 8, pp:
753 (abstract only).
Relating chemistry to modern
life
"Young people are very idealistic. They
want to think that the things that they do in the future
are positive, and God bless them for it... . If we can’t
relate what we do in chemistry for the good of the people
on the planet and the other species on the planet, I think
that we have got a problem — that we are going to attract
less and less of the greatly talented young people to the
field of chemistry. That’s a vicious cycle effect that
doesn’t happen because we really need outstanding chemists
to have a sustainable civilization. I think sustainability
is the biggest single idea for universities, and by implication
for high schools, for the next 100 years."
Dr. Terry Collins
Professor of Chemistry, Carnegie Mellon University
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