Context in Chemistry: Integrating Environmental Chemistry with the Chemistry Curriculum

Abstract

Environmental issues are topical not only in the news but in many chemistry courses, where they are used to connect the concerns of chemistry to concerns familiar to students. As such, environmental issues provide a context for understanding and learning chemical principles. However, in an environmental chemistry course for nonscience majors, we found that the mere presence of environmental topics in the curriculum was not enough to establish and reveal the connections between the students' environmental interests and chemical principles. For the environmental issues to function effectively as context, they had to be integrated into the curriculum in those places where students look for contextual information. This integration demanded restructuring the entire course to sustain the environmental focus, using principles derived from scientific rhetoric and communication. Although this course was designed explicitly for non-science majors, our experience in blending concern for communication with concern for chemistry has implications for all areas of chemical education.

High-school chemistry teaching through environmentally oriented curricula

“…Other investigators have organized developmental courses around environmental topics, although their studies did not objectively and quantitatively measure student achievement. Swan and Spiro (1995) reported on a course for non-majors. They did not report any quantitative results in their course, nor were any efforts made to methodically compare the outcomes of their course to more conventional courses.…”

Introduction to Environmental Chemistry of the Arctic: An Introductory, Lab-Based Course Offered Both Face-to-Face and by Distance

“…Contextually driven activities improve both understanding and engagement in undergraduate courses by highlighting the relevance of chemistry and its application to the real world (4). Environmental chemistry is an especially useful context in which to present chemical concepts, especially for non-majors (3). Incorporating environmental and climate-change issues into chemistry courses has been shown to improve scientific literacy and conceptual understanding (5, 6).…”

Ανάπτυξη, Εφαρμογή Και Αξιολόγηση Προγραμμάτων Περιβαλλοντικής Εκπαίδευσης Για Τη Διαχείριση Στερεών Αποβλήτων

“…Το πρόγραμμα απευθυνόταν σε φοιτητές αλλά και σε ανθρώπους που δεν είχαν παρακολουθήσει προγράμματα Χημείας. Η έρευνα έδειξε ότι πρέπει να δοθεί έμφαση και προσοχή στη σύνδεση των περιβαλλοντικών θεμάτων με τη Χημεία, για να γίνουν κατανοητά από τους ανθρώπους [79]. Ανασταλτικός παράγοντας στη διάδοση της ΠΕ στα Πανεπιστήμια είναι η εμπορευματοποίηση που έχουν υποστεί τα Ανώτατα Εκπαιδευτικά Ιδρύματα.…”