Culturally conscious, pan-historic introduction to chemistry

CHED 1446

Peter Goff, ptgoff101@mac.com1, Joshua Vanderjagt, joshua.vanderjagt@gmail.com2, Mike P, mike@ilstu.edu1, and William Hunter, whunter@ilstu.edu1. (1) Department of Chemistry, Illinois State University, Julian Hall, Normal, IL 61790-4160, (2) Department of Science, Chicago Public Schools, 2345 S Christiana St, Chicago, IL 60623
This six week introductory curriculum was created in response to institutional (ACS, AAAS) and academic recommendations to incorporate the nature of science (NOS) and the history of science (HOS) into chemistry programs in a manner relevant to students from diverse cultures. The goals of this approach were to engender an empirical understanding of scientific theory creation, the tentative nature of science in light of new evidence over time, and to broadly frame the study of chemistry as one that rationalizes macroscopic phenomena though theories of microscopic interactions represented both symbolically and graphically. Conventional assessments have shown comparable content mastery (combustion, enthalpy, properties of metals, redox, solvation, gases) as students in a traditionally taught course directed towards health science majors. Interviews, document analyses, and qualitative pre/post surveys have been used to investigate the gains in the NOS, HOS, and cultural relevancy.
 

Chemistry Education Research
8:30 AM-11:55 AM, Tuesday, April 8, 2008 Hilton New Orleans Riverside -- HEC A, Oral

Division of Chemical Education

The 235th ACS National Meeting, New Orleans, LA, April 6-10, 2008