Chemistry in Everyday Life: A Context-Based Course for High School Students Incorporating Household Application Topics with Explanatory Writing Assignments

Abstract

Chemistry in Everyday Life, a foundation level course, was developed and implemented for high school students at the Thammasat Secondary School, Thailand. The course was designed around the topic of influencing household attitudes about the relevance of chemistry. The goal was affective instructional engagement in beginning chemistry student learning. Principal chemistry content was taught, addressing three household-related items: (i) polymeric material utensils; (ii) detergents or cleaning products; and (iii) liquid hydrocarbon-based petroleum for vehicles. One research mode was to integrate explanatory writing assignments to help students identify socioscientific issues and conceptualize lesson content. Students understood chemistry concepts by constructing individual explanations of scientific phenomena. The quality of student submissions, learning difficulties, and course evaluations were evaluated. Results indicate that the course boosted student interest and self-efficacy in the chemistry learning engagement.