Integrating biology and chemistry in a first-semester college course

CHED 475

Gary B Gillis, ggillis@mtholyoke.edu1, Amy L. Springer, aspringe@mtholyoke.edu1, and Sean M. Decatur, sdecatur@mtholyoke.edu2. (1) Department of Biological Sciences, Mount Holyoke College, 50 College Street, South Hadley, MA 01075, (2) Department of Chemistry, Mount Holyoke College, Carr Laboratory, S. Hadley, MA 01075
We designed and implemented a new eight-credit integrative introduction to biology and chemistry, with lab, at Mount Holyoke College in fall 2006. The course was built around three thematic units: diversity, oxygen and temperature. Labs included characterizing biological diversity and chemical levels in local ponds, modeling molecules essential to photosynthesis and exploring metabolism. Exams involved separate biology and chemistry sections as well as several integrated questions. Students found integrative questions difficult, but scores on such questions predicted overall exam scores well. Moreover, among students there was a clear positive correlation between the overall performance in chemistry and the overall performance in biology. Our experience suggests that topics common to introductory biology (e.g., metabolism, photosynthesis, evolution, organismal structure and function) can provide a useful framework for highlighting fundamental themes in introductory chemistry (e.g., reactivity, stoichiometry, atomic structure and intermolecular forces), and that integration is important if difficult for incoming college students.
 

General Papers
8:00 AM-10:15 AM, Thursday, August 23, 2007 Seaport -- Plaza A, Oral

Division of Chemical Education

The 234th ACS National Meeting, Boston, MA, August 19-23, 2007