The Tapestry of Chemistry Education

Abstract

Academic journals, including the Journal of Chemical Education, are repositories of individual works from communities of scholars. Often the use of information from journals is discrete, operating at the level of the individual article. Indeed, the use of search engines and rapid electronic delivery of individual articles as a PDF file has likely exacerbated this tendency. For chemistry education, National Chemistry Week presents an opportunity to contemplate the larger picture, woven as if a tapestry, for the teaching and learning of chemistry. Even a brief synopsis of a small fraction of articles in this Journal shows that taking such a broad point of view reveals a field that is constantly creating a dynamic pathway for students to find their favorite piece of the picture of chemistry.