from Laura Slocum, JCE High School Associate Editor

Summer is really here though it seems like school just ended, and I just finished going through the turmoil of choosing textbooks once again this year. My school changed its online book vendor, so each instructor had the option of making changes in course textbooks. Perhaps “turmoil” is not the best word, but it sure feels that way to most of us at the end of the school year. I decided to stay with the same textbook I have been using in my first year chemistry course. Selecting a book for my Introduction to Organic and Introduction to Biochemistry course is more difficult. For this course, I look for a book that is descriptive but not too detailed. For example, I do not teach mechanisms of reactions in my organic course, so the book does not need to include mechanisms for organic reactions.

Thus, you might wonder why am I still on the topic of books? Books captivate me—they also provide a wonderful place to escape to when I am tired of all the “noise”. By this time of year, a bit of quiet is satisfying and very much needed. If you feel the same way, this month’s issue of the Journal of Chemical Education offers great resources to find a book for your own quiet escape.

The Summer Reading issue remains one of my favorites. Summer Reading has appeared in the June or July issue of JCE for many years, and you can search the JCE online index for past lists using Summer Reading as the title. Each typically contains at least two or three books that I add to my own Summer Reading list, and I have never been disappointed. The honest and open manner in which the summer book reviewers share their insights causes me to ponder and want to explore further the books suggested. For example, I really like Oliver Sacks’s Uncle Tungsten, and his book, Musicophilia, that Cheryl Frech describes sounds very interesting. I am always trying to learn more about why so many of my students seem to be equally motivated by music and chemistry, and I am beginning to learn more about the underlying connections between the two disciplines (1).

Unfortunately, I cannot completely escape my professional responsibilities and I have added Hal Harris’s recommendation Measuring Up, to my summer list as well. My world was consumed by assessment this year more than any other to date. Until this year, my school did not have to do state-wide subject testing; however, if we want to remain in the high school athletic tournament brackets, we have to include end-of-course assessments at appropriate places in our curriculum. This did not impact my classes this year, but it will soon. I am looking forward to any additional insight Measuring Up might provide in regard to student assessment.

Earth Day Update
My first-ever classroom Earth Day celebration went well. As I mentioned in my Take on the Issue column in February 2009, I decided to save the topic of gas laws until closer to Earth Day this year (2). It seemed odd to do gas laws so late in the year, but I am glad that we celebrated Earth Day at my school. My students seemed to like the 100th JCE Classroom Activity: How Heavy Is the Balloon? (3), but the students did not continue talking about it as I thought they might. The school did re-start our school-wide recycling program and it is going well. I am grateful for the resurgence of this program and the enthusiasm the students seem to have for ensuring that everyone is participating in the recycling program.

Beautifully colored Marangoni flow patterns are generated on top of a floral motif background. To make your own, see Mundell, D. W. J. Chem. Educ. 2009, 86, 833.

Erica’s Take on the Issue
from Erica K. Jacobsen, JCE High School Editor

JCE staff and friends are heading to Radford, VA. We’ll be there Sunday, August 2 through Thursday, August 6 as part of the ChemEd meeting, hosted by Radford University. We hope to see you there! Look for us in the exhibit hall Sunday night as well on as Monday and Tuesday. We’ll be staffing booths for JCE, the ChemEd Digital Library (ChemEd DL), the ACS Exams Institute, and ICE (the Institute for Chemical Education). Stop by to start or renew a subscription (and get a piece of free JCE Software), find out about great ChemEd DL resources, discuss publication ideas, and more. We’re also leading several presentations about helpful resources you can take back to your classroom and use this fall. For a listing of JCE-related presentations, see “News from Journal House”.

Literature Cited

1. Slocum, Laura E. J. Chem. Educ. 2007, 84, 1897.
2. Jacobsen, Erica K. J. Chem. Educ. 2009, 86, 141.
3. Johnson, Bettie Obi; Milligan, Henry Van. How Heavy Is a Balloon? Using the Ideal Gas Law. J. Chem. Educ. 2009, 86, 224A–224B.

JCE High School Chemed Learning Information Center (CLIC)

Approximately five years ago I pointed out that two-year and community colleges provide many valuable contributions to chemical education (1). The recent publication of the third edition of the ACS Guidelines for Chemistry in Two-Year College Programs (2) provides a good reason to revisit the important role these colleges and their faculty play in U.S. education.

 In the U.S. there are 1195 two-year colleges (institutions where an associate’s degree is the highest degree awarded) and they enroll 11.5 million students every year. Students are about 60% part-time, their average age is 29, and about 40% are the first generation of their families to participate in higher education. In science and engineering, 44% of recent recipients of bachelor’s and master’s degrees had taken at least one course in a two-year college. Two-year colleges contribute significantly to increasing the racial/ethnic and gender diversity of science and engineering. Roughly 180,000 students are enrolled in chemistry classes at two-year-colleges each year and the average college has eight chemistry lecture sections.

Coming up with standards appropriate for the broad range of two-year colleges is a tall order, but since 1988 the ACS has done so every ten years. The Two-Year College Chemistry Consortium/Conference (2YC₃) had developed its own guidelines before that. The latest guidelines were approved by the ACS ­Society Committee on Education at its meeting in Salt Lake City in March. They have been thoroughly updated, especially with regard to meshing with the recent changes in the ACS guidelines for bachelor’s degree programs (3). Taken together these two sets of guidelines provide excellent criteria that all undergraduate chemistry programs should aspire to meet.

The two-year college guidelines emphasize that there must be a strong commitment to students’ learning and success, that there must be enough full-time, well-educated faculty to teach the range of courses offered, that adequate facilities and support staff must be provided, that pedagogy must be based on chemical education research, and that it is beneficial to involve students in undergraduate research during their first two years. The guidelines recognize that curricula must be designed both for students whose career goals involve chemistry and science and for those who will not take many science courses but need to be aware of the methods of science. As in the bachelor’s degree guidelines, self-evaluation of two-year programs is encouraged as an ongoing process of assessing whether goals are being achieved.

The new guidelines are excellent, but guidelines are only as good as those who implement them. Effective chemistry education requires dedicated teachers who are knowledgeable in their fields, can work effectively with students, are willing to use guidelines to prompt their institutions to greater commitment, and can prepare both science majors and other students to think effectively about science and scientific issues. At present two-year colleges have many such teachers, but within 10—15 years more than half of the full-time faculty members at two-year colleges are expected to retire (4).

What will happen after that depends on all of us. If two-year colleges are to continue their major contributions to science education, we will need to recruit a great many more top-notch students to teaching careers in two-year colleges. At the moment it seems that most of us in the four-year institutions are neither aware of the gravity of the problem nor doing much to address it. I know of several excellent two-year college teachers who were discouraged by their mentors from taking positions in what were considered to be “lesser” institutions.

We should encourage high school, undergraduate, and graduate students to join the profession of teaching, where they can provide the foundation for the future scientific and intellectual capabilities of our country. We should point out that two-year colleges encourage students who might otherwise not consider science, but who might become super scientists of tomorrow. We should celebrate our many colleagues who teach by choice in two-year colleges because they have the desire and passion to make a real difference and because they believe that every student is important. We should not expect students, even graduate students, to become carbon copies of ourselves but rather should encourage them to find out where their talents can best be used and then dedicate themselves to use those talents to improve our society. All of us need to rededicate ourselves to the goals that attracted two-year college teachers to choose their preeminent positions in education.

Literature Cited

    1.  Moore, J. W. J. Chem. Educ. 2004, 81, 1239.

   2.  ACS Guidelines for Chemistry in Two-Year College Programs, ACS Society Committee on Education: Washington, DC, 2009; a PDF version of the guidelines is available at http://acs.org/, click on Education and then on Two-Year College Guidelines (accessed May 2009).

   3.  Undergraduate Professional Education in Chemistry: ACS Guidelines and Evaluation Procedures for Bachelor’s Degree Programs, American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2008; a PDF version of the guidelines is available at http://acs.org/, click on Education and then on ACS Approval for Bachelor’s Programs (accessed May 2009).

   4.  Barnett, Lynn; San Felice, Faith; Patton, Madeline Teaching by Choice: Cultivating Exemplary Community College STEM Faculty, Community College Press: Washington, DC, 2006; see http://webadmin.aacc.nche.edu/Resources/aaccprograms/Documents/stemfaculty.pdf (accessed May 2009).

Two-year Colleges and Future Teachers: How can …

In July 2001 I wrote decrying the over-reliance on high-stakes testing as a means of evaluating students, teachers, and schools (1). Eight years later, the situation has not changed for the better. It is worthwhile to revisit the issues raised at that time and make a few more comments.

The strong emphasis on testing seems to be based on the mistaken notion that pencil-and-paper tests can evaluate accurately whether specific students, entire classes, the teachers of those classes, entire schools, and the administrators of those schools are performing adequately. While tests can provide evidence to support or deny adequate performance, they are only one measure. In addition, the design of test questions and the extent to which those tested are familiar with the content and techniques required to do well can have significant effects on the outcomes.  Overemphasis on tests as the sole measure of a student’s or a school’s success can lead to a less successful education system and can divert attention from other alternatives that would lead to greater success.

Teaching to the high-stakes tests has become a way of life in many schools. A good example is an article titled “Help! The Test is Only “X” Weeks from Now!”, which provides suggestions for principals who want to rally teachers and students to improve their schools’ test scores (2). Many of the techniques suggested are useful for getting students to perform their best, but couching those methods solely in support of higher test scores sends a message to both teachers and students that real learning is not the goal. Instead, success can only be measured through higher test scores. In support of this goal principals are advised to, “Utilize homeroom time, advisory time, study hall time, or, if absolutely necessary, consider pulling them [students whose scores need to improve] from non-tested classes for part of the period.”

The reality of high-stakes testing and its skewing of the curriculum has led to pressure from advocates of subjects not tested (such as science) to start testing in those areas. Taken to its ultimate, this approach would result in high-stakes testing in every area, so that no aspect of a child’s development will be left out of a curriculum badly out of kilter in its priorities. This seems to me like drowning the baby in the bath water.

There is a better way. Take a look at the results of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) for 2007 (3). The country with the highest scores on this international test is Singapore. Singapore’s success is not confined to the latest TIMSS either—it ranked first in 1999 as well. This led the Pearson Foundation and the Council of Chief State School Officers to convene a conference last year to consider what could be learned from Singapore’s singular success. Here is a brief summary their report (4).

Singapore’s education system is highly successful. Approximately 87% of students matriculate in two-year college, four-year college, or university and the country has one of the highest literacy ratings in the world. There is clearly a long-term commitment to education, and the society places a high value on education and teachers. Teachers are paid at the same level as scientists and engineers and they receive 100 hours of professional development allotment each year. Students have to compete hard to enter a teacher-training program and they receive stipends during their student days. (A private group, the Hach Scientific Foundation, provides scholarships for undergraduates studying to be chemistry teachers in the U.S. (5). This is a model for what our government ought to be doing in all subjects nationwide.)

Singapore’s single, nationally unified curriculum has adopted the “less is more” approach often advocated but seldom practiced in the U.S. Contextual, self-motivated learning is the goal and it is being achieved by a well-trained cadre of teachers who are provided significant support. In Singapore, “The curriculum goes beyond the academics required for national examinations and motivates students to be self-directed, voracious learners with well-developed skills in the areas of analytical thinking, decision-making, and problem-solving—skills that are needed in all educational and workplace settings.” (4). Included in the curriculum are “literacy, numeracy, bilingualism, the sciences, humanities, aesthetics, physical education, civics and moral education, and national education.” (4).

Of course what Singapore is doing costs more than what most countries (especially our own) are doing. Can we afford such an educational system? A better question is, Can we afford not to have such an educational system? Education is an investment in the future. If we do not make that investment then our children, their children, and our nation will suffer. The Pearson/CCSSO report quotes Lee Iacocca as saying, “In a completely rational society, the best of us would be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something else.” Many of the teachers I have met are among the best of us. When our society recognizes that and provides the respect, compensation, and support that these professionals need to do their jobs, then our test scores will soar.

Literature Cited

1. Moore, J.W. J. Chem. Educ. 2001, 78, 855.

2. Robinson, Linda Article posted on the Web site of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, http://www.principals.org/s_nassp/sec.asp?CID=937&DID=59268 (accessed Apr 2009).

(3) National Center for Educational Statistics, TIMSS 2007 Results, http://nces.ed.gov/timss/results07.asp  (accessed Apr 2009).

4. Kennedy, B.; Manise, J.; Montgomery, S. Report and Recommendations for Education Policy Leaders, Pearson Foundation/CCSSO International Conference on Science and Mathematics Education, April 28-May 1, 2008, http://www.pearsonfoundation.org/PDF/PF-CCSSO_Report.pdf (accessed Apr 2009).

5. See http://www.hachscientificfoundation.org/home.shtml (accessed Apr 2009).

CCSSO Resources on No Child Left Behind

from Erica K. Jacobsen, JCE High School Editor

I’m a fairly casual blog follower. There are only a few links of that sort in my Web browser’s bookmarks bar, all maintained by geographically distant friends. When I have a few minutes of downtime and the laptop is running, I’ll “drop in” for a quick update on what’s happening in their lives. It’s an easy way to stay connected. As the header of one friend’s blog states “Since we’re so bad at actual letter writing…” However, the flow of information tends to be one-way. Even though I read the majority of the posts on these particular blogs, I rarely respond to any by posting a comment. Why is this? Laziness over the extra bit of time it takes to comment? Not feeling I have anything earth shaking to comment? The pressure of writing something that sounds intelligent? Knowing that what I write will be Web crawled and cached online? I’m not sure.

Are you aware that this column, editor John Moore’s editorial, and other selected commentaries, have been blogged as part of this National Science Digital Library (NSDL) site since fall 2007? Based on the monthly data I collect using Google Analytics tools, I see that a growing number of people are visiting this blog portion of the Chemical Education Digital Library (ChemEdDL) pathway of the NSDL. However, it was only recently that the first comment about the Especially for High School Teachers column was posted. It came by a roundabout journey. I was pleased to have Dick Moran, a teacher I met at the American Chemical Society conference in Boston, email me about the March 2009 column topic of curriculum change. I encouraged him to share his thoughts with a wider audience by posting a comment on the blog. Do you have thoughts to share as you read this or other Especially columns, whether you read hard copies or online? Why not share them? Can we open up a dialogue and transform the communication into a two-way flow? We know you have something worthwhile to say and contribute to the chemical education community. Laura and I both repeat it often, but I’ll say it again: We would love to hear from you.

If you haven’t yet taken the time to visit the ChemEd DL (accessed May 2009), Pharr’s article in the June 2009 issue of the Journal of Chemical Education might be the perfect prompt. She describes the project Today’s Science for Tomorrow’s Scientists, that is “a Web-based tutorial that introduces current scientific research into middle school and high school classrooms while simultaneously correlating with National Science Education Standards.” The resource is freely available as part of the ChemEdDL collection (accessed May 2009). Three tutorials focus on the work done by three chemistry research groups from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. They cover the topics of organic chemistry/astrochemistry, inorganic chemistry/catalysis, and biochemistry/peptide design. Pharr also invites others to contribute their own research tutorials to the collection. Are you involved in research or know someone who is? What do you wish students knew about that work?

A bead necklace is used to illustrate the idea of primary and secondary structures of proteins in the Web-based tutorial, “Today’s Science for Tomorrow’s Scientists”.

Laura’s Take on the Issue
from Laura Slocum, JCE High School Associate Editor

In the Book & Media Reviews there are reviews of six Electronic Homework Management Systems, each written by a university-level faculty member who uses that particular system in his or her courses. I appreciate how Cheryl Baldwin Frech, the new editor for this column, coordinates reviews. To find the reviews, visit the table of contents for the June 2009 issue, and see the article links for pages 691-698.

I, too, use an electronic homework system at the high school level. It took me three years to decide which system to use based on the cost per student and “teacher-time” required to manage the systems I evaluated. I had evaluated some of the systems reviewed in this issue, but decided to use CALM: Computer Assisted Learning Method. It is not one of the systems reviewed, but I selected this system because it was not tied to a specific textbook and was free to the teacher and students. I found that it was simple to implement CALM into my curriculum. I assign at least one set of electronic homework assignments (5–8 problems) a week. My students also really like using CALM and many of them go back and use the questions I assign when reviewing for tests. Bettyann Howson and Diane Krone also talked about their use of CALM in their presentation during the High School Program at the ACS National Meeting in Salt Lake City this past March. I think that many of you will find this information about electronic homework systems helpful as you explore the various systems available to you. Like Erica, I encourage you to share your ideas about these or other electronic homework systems that would be helpful for other high school teachers. Share your comments on this blog!

JCE High School Chemed Learning Information Center (CLIC)

It is said that virtue is its own reward. The earliest statement is, “Ipsa quidem virtus sibimet pulcherrima merces” [Virtue herself is her own fairest reward] (1). Is learning in the same category? Should it be?There is considerable debate on the subject (2).

Many economists and business people argue that students will work harder and learn more if they are paid for successful learning. We pay workers for doing a good job, so why not pay students for high academic performance? Many psychologists argue that monetary rewards have immediate but not long-term benefit. When rewards are no longer given, students are less likely to continue the desired behavior than those who received no rewards.

Either approach, if taken to excess, becomes absurd. As the size of a monetary reward increases, the reward looks more and more like a Wall Street trader’s bonus. As we know from bitter experience in the past six months, such a system breeds excess. Students are more likely to play the system than to learn effectively—perhaps even cheating to obtain a reward. On the other hand, with no incentive or feedback of any kind from teachers, parents, or peers, students are less likely to devote their time to learning. If such a system were workable there would be no need for teachers: students could (and would) learn everything on their own from books, the Web, and personal experience.

Much of the debate ignores very significant differences among the diverse personalities of children. For some a word or two can provide major motivation; for others much more emphatic feedback would be required to achieve the same end. The debate also seems to ignore the degree to which a variety of factors other than direct rewards might increase students’ intrinsic interest in a subject and in understanding that subject. To be a good scientist requires curiosity as well as knowledge and hard work. Perhaps encouraging curiosity is where we could make the most effective progress. Curiosity motivates children to spend time learning facts and developing understanding of principles. It also is an important behavior characteristic of scientists.

A recent report from the National Academies indicates that informal science education can be an important factor motivating children to learn science and encouraging their interest in becoming scientists (3). Last month I described a report from the National Academies on K–8 education (4). It listed four attributes of students who are proficient in science: know, use, and interpret scientific explanations of the natural world; generate and evaluate scientific evidence and explanations; understand the nature and development of scientific knowledge; and participate productively in scientific practices and discourse. The report on informal science education adds two more attributes that are especially significant in informal settings:

• Experience excitement, interest, and motivation to learn about phenomena in the natural and physical world;
• Think about themselves as science learners and develop an identity as someone who knows about, uses, and sometimes contributes to science.
• These two attributes apply to everyone—children, parents, students, and adults of all ages.

The report also calls for increased interaction and cooperation among those who conceive and create museum exhibits, teachers and others in formal educational institutions, and the communities in which they work. Those of us in higher education could contribute a lot more to informal science education both locally and across the country. Pre-college educators could do the same. This might involve generating new ideas for informal science learning, consulting about design and development of new exhibits, creating curricula that include visits to science exhibits or reference to them so that students are encouraged to visit, and more structured and organized means of regular interaction with informal science educators.

Informal science education contributes a great deal to making science learning “her own fairest reward” and to encouraging more young people (and old people) to learn about and appreciate science. Let’s support our colleagues in informal science education as strongly as we possibly can.

Literature Cited

1. Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, 17th ed.; Kaplan, Justin, General Ed.; Little, Brown and Company: New York, 2002; p 252 attributes the quote to Silius Italicus, Punica, bk. XIII, l. 663.
2. Guernsey, Lisa. Rewards for Students Under a Microscope. New York Times, March 3, 2009, p D1 (accessed Mar 2009).
3. Committee on Learning Science in Informal Environments, National Research Council. Learning Science in Informal Environments: People, Places, and Pursuits; Bell, Philip; Lewenstein, Bruce; Shouse, Andrew W.; Feder, Michael A., Eds.; National Academies Press: Washington, 2009 (accessed Mar 2009).
4. Taking Science to School: Learning and Teaching Science in Grades K–8; Duschi, Richard A.; Schweingruber, Heidi A.; Shouse, Andrew W., Eds.; U.S. National Academies Press: Washington, 2007 (accessed Mar 2009).

Encyclopedia of Informal Education

from Erica Jacobsen, JCE High School Editor

A 4,000 mile round-trip in a car can get a little boring. When I was a child, summers typically included a drive from our home in Arizona to visit relatives scattered across Minnesota and Wisconsin. The license plate game was a favorite way to pass the time. We began with a simple form: trying to find a license plate from each of the 50 states (Hawaii, anyone?). After that became old hat, we tried to fill three categories—semi, car, and truck—for each of the states. Sighting vanity license plates always added a little spice to the proceedings. Some were easy to figure out, even for a child. Some even stumped the adults.

A Volkswagen Beetle sped by as I drove on the Interstate the other day. A glimpse of the license plate showed “BTLE JCE”. I’ll admit my point of view has been influenced by my place of work for the past decade. Show me “JCE” and the first thing to spring to mind is the Journal of Chemical Education. So my initial puzzled thought of “beetle JCE” was not correct. Some time ago, I did see the movie, Beetlejuice, starring Michael Keaton. That made more sense.

Our thoughts on a subject are influenced by our prior knowledge and experiences. As the license plate example shows, this is true outside the classroom. As chemical education research shows, it is definitely true inside the classroom as well. In their article in the May 2009 issue of the Journal of Chemical Education Tan and Taber state “Students attempt to make sense of what they are being taught based on their prior knowledge and if they cannot make any links to the new concepts taught, they may ‘bend’ what is taught to fit somewhere, thus giving rise to alternative conceptions.” Their article looks one step back in the process; they studied the understanding pre-service teachers had of concepts related to ionization energy and their alternative conceptions. They found “The prevalence of alternative conceptions among the pre-service teachers was similar to that previously found among high school students…”. A teacher’s point of view can influence a student’s point of view.

We can also be influenced by the behavior of those around us. In the May issue, McKean describes a children’s picture book where a boy and his father construct an elaborate sand castle on a beach. Afterward, even as their castle is washed away by the water, they see that others observed their activity and decided to do the same. McKean complements the book with science activities appropriate for preschool and elementary-aged students. Children compare the properties of ordinary sand and Magic Sand. Can one build a castle with each kind of sand?

ACS and the Hach Scientific Foundation

Terri Taylor shares exciting news of a new partnership between the American Chemical Society (ACS) and the Hach Scientific Foundation. The Foundation recently gave the ACS a gift of $33 million. The ACS will now continue the programs previously run by the Foundation, particularly three that directly benefit both current high school educators and those studying to become one. High school teachers unfamiliar with the programs will want to access the ACS Web site to find out about the High School Chemistry Grant Program. The program provides up to $1,500 to pay for resources “to support and enhance student learning and development.” Unfortunately, the April 1, 2009, deadline will have passed by the time this column appears. However, teachers should file away information on this valuable opportunity and apply next year.

Laura’s Take on the Issue
from Laura Slocum, JCE High School Associate Editor

Corn crops and ethanol fuels are big topics of conversation in Indiana—corn is a major crop and ethanol plants have sprung up (1). Students want to know if using ethanol as a fuel will really make a difference in terms of air pollution and oil consumption. They also want to know how much it will cost to produce ethanol fuel and how much corn we would need to grow to fuel cars with ethanol. I told them there was an article coming in the Journal that would help them to answer these questions. The article is in this issue and I am excited. Pietro proposes five considerations to determine how much “Corn-Area-per-Car” would be needed. I am looking forward to having my AP Chemistry students try this, and then having them weigh in on potential sources of errors and the impact of those errors. Along with the background information I found (1), Pietro’s article may help them find answers to their questions. Isn’t this what teaching and learning is all about?

Literature Cited
1. Indiana grows about 884 million acres of corn/year, not including sweet corn. The state has 11 ethanol plants and two more under construction (both sites accessed Mar 2009). When completed, their combined production will exceed 1.1 billion gallons of ethanol/year, using approximately 423 million bushels of corn.

JCE High School Chemed Learning Information Center (CLIC)

The dictionary definition of science begins something like this: The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of natural phenomena. Notice that all the nouns are derived from verbs: observe, identify, describe, investigate, and explain. This implies strongly that science is more a process than a body of knowledge. Only later do we find: Knowledge, esp. knowledge gained through experience. Unfortunately the way we teach science often emphasizes that latter definition more than the former one. We tell students about science more than we ask them to do science-or even to apply scientific modes of thinking to problems. If that is what we do, we are not really teaching science.

A report from the U.S. National Academies makes this point emphatically with respect to K-8 science education (1). According to the report, “Students who are proficient in science:

1.         know, use, and interpret scientific explanations of the natural world;

2.         generate and evaluate scientific evidence and explanations;

3.         understand the nature and development of scientific knowledge; and

4.         participate productively in scientific practices and discourse.”

The first we usually aim to achieve, but the latter three also are extremely important, not only for scientists but for everyone in a democratic society. Many people in the U.S. do not accept scientific explanations such as evolution, and many ignore science when they make decisions, so it is crucial that students have more experience with science as a process.

In the early 1990s the Institute for Chemical Education held summer workshops for K-3 teachers called Super Science Connections (2). I and several others worked with a group of superb K-3 teachers to develop the content and process for these workshops. The K-3 teachers were surprised to observe that my behavior in exploring a hands-on chemistry activity was very similar to the behavior of their students-inquisitive and even playful. They recognized that their early elementary students were behaving as scientists behave, without necessarily having had any scientific training. In Super Science Connections we attempted to integrate science with reading, writing, and other required aspects of the K-3 curriculum. Our goal was to make science appear as it is-important in all aspects of children’s experience and for society as a whole. Teachers who attended the workshops were surprised that science could be so readily integrated into their curricula; it required neither a separate time nor a science specialist. They could do it themselves. Perhaps more integration of this sort is needed to emphasize that science is a way of thinking-one in which both children and adults can participate.

Of course, teaching science as a way of thinking is important for everyone. Those of us in higher education teach K-8 teachers and we too overemphasize knowledge to the detriment of process (3). One of the main reasons that many K-8 teachers are not aware of the full range of science proficiency outlined by the National Academies report is that we don’t teach it in introductory courses. That’s too bad, because learning the process, origin, and values of science is important for everyone from elementary-school children through future Nobel laureates.

The value system of science should be an important part of the curriculum. Science strongly values honesty, objectivity, respect for facts and their implications, communication, openness to opposing evidence, and a healthy distrust of authority. We scientists constantly think about what we know and what facts support our theories and knowledge. From that thought has evolved the process we now call science-an approach that has proved fantastically successful. We should help students to discover that approach, or at least point it out often. We can also emphasize that the values of science are the values of democracy (4). It is no accident that science and democracy developed at about the same time. Sometimes the same people were instrumental in creating both.

President Barack Obama, in his inaugural address, vowed to “restore science to its rightful place”. Those words, music to the ears of nearly every scientist, have been widely applauded. Implied also is that the values of science are essential to maintaining a healthy democracy. But the fact that science needs to be restored to its rightful place is indirectly an indictment of scientists and teachers. We need to work harder and smarter to really teach science, actively encouraging our students to learn everything that science is. Let’s redouble our efforts to restore the process of science to its rightful place in science education.

Literature Cited

1.         1. Taking Science to School: Learning and Teaching Science in Grades K-8; Duschi, Richard A.; Schweingruber, Heidi A.; Shouse, Andrew W., Eds.; U.S. National Academies Press: Washington, 2007; http://books.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11625 (accessed Feb 2009).

2.         Super Science Connections; Smith, Janice, Ed.; Institute for Chemical Education: Madison, WI, 1995.

3.         Alberts, Bruce Science 2009, 323, 437; http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/323/5913/437 (accessed Feb 2009).

4.         Overbye, Dennis Elevating Science, Elevating Democracy. New York Times, Jan 26, 2009; http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/science/27essa.html (accessed Feb 2009).

On the Process of Becoming a Great Scientist

from Laura Slocum, JCE High School Associate Editor

A couple of years ago I started making small changes to the order in which I teach some of the topics in my first-year chemistry course. I did this because I had noticed that when I followed the traditional chapter order of the text, I was transitioning back and forth between the “math-intensive” and less quantitative topics. As I made each transition, many students became frustrated and rarely asked questions. Then after a few days, most would settle into the new topic and start asking questions again. But it was hard for me to see the confusion in their eyes and not have them ask the questions that were obviously there. So, I wondered if changing the order of topics would help keep my students more focused and asking questions.

The first year I made changes in small ways, more in the second, and even more this year. I feel really comfortable with the changes, and I like the changes in my students too. However, this means I am no longer teaching the textbook order of the chapters and some of my students—and many of the parents—were quite surprised that we “are not following the book”. Now I only teach metric conversions as the students need them for the laboratory part of the course. But stoichiometry, both composition and reaction, comes all together as one unit at the beginning of second semester. Solution concentrations then follow stoichiometry. Three years later, I am still making sequencing changes to my first-year chemistry course because I have been making small incremental changes, and I know that my course is still not exactly where I want it to be for my students.

I mentioned the biggest change to this year’s sequence in Laura’s Take in the February issue of the Journal of Chemical Education. That issue focuses on Earth Day, and I noted that I would celebrate it in the classroom for the very first time this year. The 100th JCE Classroom Activity: How Heavy Is a Balloon? excited me and had a direct application to the gas laws. I knew that my students would love the activity, but I did not want to just do the activity to celebrate Earth Day: I wanted the activity to “match my curriculum”. So, I purposely moved the section on gas laws to April to “fit” Earth Day. We have already done lots of stoichiometry and solutions by that time, and I believe this will allow me to better connect the two topics for the students.

Teaching in different sequences has been personally and professionally invigorating. I find that by teaching the less “mathematically based” chemistry topics first, then when I move into the more mathematical topics—stoichiometry, concentration, and now gas laws—the students make the transition more easily. One way that I measure how they are doing is by their comments. So far this spring, I have not had one student say, “not more math!” That’s a very refreshing and encouraging change. At the end of the semester I will definitely evaluate reordering topics more extensively for consideration in future years.

Another change that I have made is adding more inquiry-based labs and activities to my classes, something that I haven’t always found simple. However, I found Cacciatore’s and Sevian’s research and suggestions for incrementally incorporating inquiry into their curriculum very helpful. Their article also made me think about how changes do not need to always be “big” or done all at once, but I do need to consider many things when I make changes—who they will impact, how will they impact them, how to implement the change, how to pay for the change, etc. Curriculum changes abound. Share your thoughts on curriculum changes by emailing Erica or me.

Microcapsules coated on a human hair. See Activity #101, The Secret of Smart Paper, to see how microcapsules are used in everyday materials. Image by Appleton; used with permission.

Erica’s Take on the Issue

Nostalgia took hold when George Sellers first shared his story with me about his “Nobel gift” of an Erector Set for Sir Harold Kroto. It brought back visions from childhood of my brother’s heavy wooden box packed with Erector Set components—all sorts of nuts, bolts, and slim metal pieces covered with holes. You could build pretty much anything, limited only by your imagination and the agility of your fingers. I took Kroto’s advice and purchased a set for our family a month or two ago. Even younger elementary-aged children can benefit from the practice of deciphering the pictorial directions and the skill of properly threading a nut and bolt and tightening it just enough. This first “Teacher Talk” anecdote had a real effect on me, and I hope the set will have a lasting impression on my children. What experiences can you share?

For more information about Kroto’s life, his fascinating work with fullerenes, as well as his thoughts on teaching and learning science and creativity, see Liberato Cardellini’s JCE article “Chemistry, Creativity, Collaboration, and C60: An Interview with Harold W. Kroto”.

JCE High School Chemed Learning Information Center (CLIC)

from Erica K. Jacobsen, JCE High School Editor

Hungry for Food Chemistry
I’m hungry. Can’t say that I remember the last time reading a magazine brought on an attack of the munchies, but the March issue of the Journal of Chemical Education got my mouth watering. A major reason for this was Miles and Bachman’s article (p 311) “Science of Food and Cooking: A Non-Science Majors Course”. The article is loaded with examples of how they incorporate different foods and cooking techniques into the course. The connection to such practical, everyday items helps the instructors provide a class that they hope will be “so vivid as to mark their [students’] minds indelibly”. The day I read the article, my children and I attended a homeschool field trip to a local butcher shop. The experience was fairly vivid! We heard several things that interested me enough to want to investigate further, such as “all the flavor comes from the fat” and that dry aging is the beginning of the rotting process. Miles and Bachman also describe a lecture I’d love to attend: how different versions of Toll House chocolate chip cookies are produced. Adjusting parts of the recipe, such as the amount of baking soda, the ratio of white to brown sugar, and the type of flour used, can have a huge impact on the resulting cookies. The photo shows samples we couldn’t resist making at home. The article also has an extensive online supplement. This month’s JCE Concept Connections highlights additional resources for teaching the science of food and cooking.

A Taste of Salt Lake City
The upcoming American Chemical Society (ACS) meeting in Salt Lake City will be tasty too. I’m looking forward to Sally Mitchell’s award address for the James Bryant Conant Award in High School Chemistry Teaching. She promises an introduction to topics dealing with solution chemistry through cooking, including determining the authenticity of vanilla samples through paper chromatography, and the making of food products such as peanut brittle, fudge, taffy, and more. Sally’s address kicks off the first of two High School Teachers Program evenings, on Monday and Tuesday, March 23 and 24. See descriptions of other programs of interest to high school teachers, including two afternoons to celebrate the first 100 JCE Classroom Activities. Chocolate Fest, a Presidential Outreach Event cosponsored by the ACS Committee on Community Activities, sounds like a don’t-miss event. The Saturday, March 21, event will focus on the chemistry of chocolate and will include hands-on activities for children.

One reason I enjoy traveling to various meetings is the chance to try new restaurants and to sample regional cuisine. It will be a long time before I forget the crème brûlée French toast from Michael’s Uptown Cafe in Bloomington, IN (BCCE 2008) or perfectly-cooked Boston scrod (NSTA 2008). What will Salt Lake City have on its plate? The CHED reception and social event on Sunday evening offers the intriguingly-named Wasatch Mountain hors d’oeuvres and a chance to network with fellow educators. Hope to see you there. I’ll be the one with my mouth full.

Laura’s Take on the Issue
from Laura Slocum, JCE High School Associate Editor

Second semester is well under way. Each year at this time I wonder if my AP Chemistry students will really be ready for the exam in May. If you teach an AP course, perhaps you do the same. This is now the eleventh time that I have taught AP Chemistry, but I still have an annual fret and panic session. After I read McNaught and Peckham’s article, “Effects of Hydrolysis on Determining the Solubility Product of Potassium Bitartrate”, my first thought was that my students were going to be in even more trouble. I use a lab similar to the labs they reference in their article that should allow my students to determine the K_sp of potassium bitartrate; however many of the students have rather large errors. Then I suddenly had an “ah ha” moment—I can finally explain some of the errors that my students have encountered. I was once again the learner, and I really appreciate what I learned from McNaught and Peckham. This is why I value the sharing that takes place within this Journal and my relationships with other teachers.

As you start to make your summer plans, add some time for sharing and include the ChemEd 2009 conference in your schedule. It will be held at Radford University, August 2–6. I really enjoy the ChemEd conferences and always look forward to seeing old friends, meeting new teachers, and sharing ideas that help me become a better and stronger chemistry teacher. If you would like to submit an abstract for a presentation, the abstract submission deadline is March 1.

JCE High School Chemed Learning Information Center (CLIC)

You might think it right up to date if this editorial began, “All the oratory and publicity aside, the American public and government remain unwilling to face up squarely to the energy problems that are upon us, and to the resulting constraints on living and productivity that they portend.” That’s too bad, because these words were written in 1978 by Tom Lippincott, who was then editor of this Journal, in an editorial titled, “Energy Independence: The Pace Must Quicken” (1). Three decades later our nation has made only sporadic progress toward addressing energy issues, and the changing context of energy, including greenhouse emissions and climate change, seems to be negating much of the progress that has been made.

Recently financial markets have been devastated by subprime mortgage lending, derivative securities that were insecure, and people who financed speculation by borrowing heavily. These economic excesses apply to all of us. We have been living on credit-spending other people’s money to maintain our current standard of living and to slake our ever-growing thirst for energy. As a frustrated industrial worker on “The Wire” complained, “We used to make [things] in this country, build [things]. Now we just put our hand in the other guy’s pocket.” (2) Our entire society seems to have become less and less cognizant of economic and scientific constraints and more and more willing to let others-especially future generations-foot the bills. Perhaps, like Wile E. Coyote in a Road Runner cartoon, we have run off a cliff. If we look down at reality, we will plummet. Perhaps we are in free fall, already subprime, with no chance of reversing an increasingly bad situation.

This is being written just before the inauguration of President Barack Obama. The appetite for change is palpable. Let’s hope it is real, carefully thought-out change that will call upon everyone to help deal with the many serious problems we face. In a 2005 Time magazine article (3), Obama said that Abraham Lincoln, “reminded me of a larger, fundamental element of American life-the enduring belief that we can constantly remake ourselves to fit our larger dreams.” Note the allusion to remaking “ourselves”, not somebody else, and the implication that all of us need to participate in the remake.  We can remake ourselves and our society. Will we?

What can we, as science teachers, contribute to remaking our society? We should provide the best possible opportunities for our own students to learn science. We need to work toward the goal that all students will have equivalent learning opportunities. We need to help students learn the latest information on science and technology that may affect policies (for example, by reading articles such as the one by Frank Settle on p 316). Beyond that, we need to help students better appreciate how the fundamentals they are learning affect applications and even impinge on policy issues. For example, the efficiencies of coal-fired and nuclear electric power plants are inherently limited by the second law of thermodynamics. Nobody can remake that fact.

We need to disabuse students of the fallacy that science and engineering can solve all of our problems. Although there will be no solutions without science, and funding for scientific research and science education are crucial, real solutions will involve sacrifices on everyone’s part. Some of what needs to be done would have been more palatable had we had a consistent, comprehensive energy policy during the past three decades. For example, higher taxes on gasoline could have funded lots of research and development. Instead requirements for automobile fuel economy were allowed to stagnate and U.S. auto companies are now saddled with inventories of vehicles nobody wants to buy. Consistent governmental support would likely have released the full force of the American economic engine to research, develop, and deploy new energy technologies that would likely have placed the U.S at the forefront of green energy today. But that did not happen.

People are rightly becoming suspicious of politicians who propose solutions without sacrifice. We teachers should be preparing students to be receptive to those who tell it as it is: we won’t be able to continue as we have been, and now is the best possible time to start changing. Foreign investors already hold about $10 trillion of U.S. Treasury notes, with about $2 trillion of that in China. Gao Xiqing, a Communist Chinese official who handles a significant portion of that investment, was educated in the U.S. and for a time was an associate in Richard Nixon’s Wall Street law firm, so he knows the U.S. well. His advice about change is “I have great admiration of American people. Creative, hard-working, trusting, and freedom-loving. But you have to have someone to tell you the truth. And then, start realizing it. And if you do…then you’ll be great again!” (4).

Is America subprime? I think not. We’ll have to work hard, sacrifice, and innovate. Now let’s go out and prove we can do it!

Literature Cited

1. Lippincott, W. T. J. Chem. Educ. 1978, 55, 275.

2. See http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0020620/quotes (accessed Jan 2009).

3. Obama, Barack Time, Tuesday, June 28, 2005; http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/06/28/obama.lincoln.tm/, accessed Jan 2009.

4. Xiqing, Gao, quoted by Fallows, James The Atlantic December 2008, Vol. 302, No. 5, p 62; http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200812/fallows-chinese-banker, accessed Jan 2009.

The Brazilian biofuels industry