5.7 Exemplary Chemistry Programs

The authors of earlier reports such as Project Synthesis pointed out that the physical sciences are not valued in the curriculum of American schools. This quite evident in our high schools. Not as many students take chemistry (and physics) in American high schools compared to biology enrollments. Perhaps this is due to the fact that physical science courses are viewed as elitist, offered generally for the college bound, or science prone student. One of the goals of physical science educators is to increase the proportion of students taking high school physical science courses. Naturally, this can be done by requiring these courses (as some school districts have), or by reforming the nature of physical science courses in a way that makes them more relevant to the needs of students.

There has been an attempts to make courses more relevant; however these courses, for the most part, were aimed at reaching a limited population, often being designed for the lower ability students. The desired state for chemistry education starts with this goal: Chemistry will cease being taught only as a college prep course; chemistry instruction will be broad based, and designed for all high school student.

The desired state for chemistry education will also include the following:

1. Focus on observation and description of common chemical reactions.
2. Reduction of the number of topics covered in high school chemistry courses. The chemistry curriculum would organize content around conceptual themes, or socially relevant topics (as in ChemCom). Conceptual development would be achieved by showing student the interrelatedness and interconnectedness of ideas.
3. Greater emphasis will be placed on common chemical reactions, and on the use of simple models to explain chemical change. Student understanding will be enhanced if these chemical reactions are connected with real problems in the student's community and world.
4. Social issues will play an increasing role in making chemistry content relevant to student's lives.
5. A greater connection between careers in chemistry and the teaching of high school chemistry will be made. Students will have the opportunity to see how people use chemistry in their professional work, and how it affects them as citizens.

With these notions in mind, let's explore a few exemplary chemistry programs.

High Interest Activities Approach

Chemistry lends itself to the EEEP concept (developed more fully in Chapter 6). For now an EEEP is an Exciting Example of Everyday Phenomena, and we use it integrate science with the real world. An EEEP is a nontraditional way to involve students in science activities.

The chemistry program described here uses high interest laboratories to pique the student's curiosity. According to the developers about 15 percent of class time is spend on nontraditional activities including labs, computers, photography, and science movies.

Some of the nontraditional labs used in their program are shown below.

Nontraditional Lab	Concepts Illustrated
Hydrogen Balloon	The production of hydrogen gas by a simple displacement reaction.
Root Beer Titration	The molarity of the base, sodium hydroxide is found by titrating the base into a known molarity of hydrochloric acid. Then the normality of hyrochloric acid is compared to different substances such as root beer, Coke, or Sprite.
Ice Cream	This experiment shows the effect of a solute (salt) in lowering the freezing point of water (mixture of sugar, cream, flavoring).
Hot Air Balloon	Students find the hover temperature of the balloon.
Rock Candy	Students make rock candy and study supersaturated solutions and crystal formation.

Chemistry For All

In order to deal with students coming from varied backgrounds, faculty at Coral Springs High School in Coral Springs, Florida have developed a laboratory-oriented approach to chemistry at four levels (Consumer Chemistry, Chemistry I, Advanced Chemistry and Organic Chemistry).

Perhaps the most important course is the Consumer Chemistry course, for students who have not done well previously in mathematics or in abstract quantitative reasoning. According to the developers of the course, the purpose is to give the students a general understanding of chemistry and its role in their lives. The authors point out that this is done in diversified laboratory hands-on program in a warm and accepting environment.

The content of the course includes foods and food additives, pharmaceuticals and drugs, nuclear energy, plastics and polymers, environmental chemistry, agricultural chemistry, and the chemistry of home care and personal products.

In the teaching of chemistry at this high school, the teacher is perceived as a facilitator of the learning environment. Very few lectures are given. Instead students are given the syllabus of the course which contains due dates for all labs and reading assignments. Experiments are posted by the week, and can be done any day during the week. Students are involved in planning their research and laboratory activities to fit their needs. The program features individualizing the instruction to fit the needs of the student. Worksheets are used to help students master the material, and computer software for drill and problem solving are available for student use.

The program pairs students as laboratory partners. Laboratory periods include a two-hour period, thereby giving students ample time to complete experiments. The faculty also work together as a team of instructors, thereby giving students access to more than one faculty member.