This one-year chemistry course developed by the American Chemical Society (ACS) with support from the National Science Foundation and other sources, was designed for the students who intend to pursue non-science careers.
ChemCom is designed to help students:
• Realize the important role that chemistry will play in their personal and professional lives.• Use principles of chemistry to think more intelligently about current issues they will encounter that involve science and technology.
• Develop a lifelong awareness of the potential and limitations of science and technology.
The ChemCom curriculum consists of eight units, each of which focuses on a chemistry-related technological issue now confronting society and the world. The issue is the vehicle used to introduce the chemistry needed to understand and analyze it. Each topic is set in a community. Communities include the school, the town or city in which the students reside, or the whole Earth.
This highly structured, yet unique chemistry curriculum involves the students in real issues facing society. Students are engaged in hands-on laboratory activities, as well as reading about environmental problems, solving problems, and answering questions.
The units in the ChemCom curriculum include:
• Supplying Our Water Needs• Conserving Chemical Resources
• Petroleum: To Build or to Burn?
• Understanding Food
• Nuclear Chemistry in Our World
• Chemistry, Air and Climate
• Chemistry and Health
• The Chemical Industry: Promise and Challenge
The curriculum involves the students in a variety of decision-making activities. For example, one type of decision-making activity is called "Chem Quandary," and is designed to get the students to think about chemical applications and society issues which are often open-ended. Often these activities generate additional questions beyond specific answers.
ChemCom Availability:
ChemCom Chemistry in the Community Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company 2460 Kerper Blvd. P.O. Box 539 Dubuque, Iowa 52001