Inspire Chemistry Student Edition Pdf
Heron Mathis
The program covers structure and properties of matter, chemical bonding and reactions, matter, energy, and equilibrium, and organic and nuclear chemistry, as well as cross-curricular earth science topics. Through inquiry-based and hands-on investigations of real-world phenomenon, students will construct explanations for scientific phenomenon and design solutions for real-world problems.
College professors across the US are using social justice and advocacy initiatives to get students excited and inspired about their science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) classes. These projects also give students the intellectual, experimental, and communication skills recommended by ACS guidelines for 2-year and 4-year colleges.
Doucette, together with Heather Price, a chemistry professor at North Seattle College, won US National Science Foundation (NSF) funding for the Climate Justice in Undergraduate STEM: Incorporating Civic Engagement initiative. The initiative will help faculty create course content on the science of climate and environmental change and the effects on communities.
Price engaged her students by helping them explore ways to construct air filters using box fans during a smoky fire season with unusually high levels of air pollution. Students installed particulate matter sensors in various buildings on campus to track indoor air quality as smoke worsened, and they tested various setups to see which best filtered air.
Teaching students about advocacy is an important part of the ACS Approval Program, a program that promotes excellence in chemistry education for undergraduate students through approval of baccalaureate chemistry programs. The Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Pennsylvania runs an annual Day on the Hill event at the Pennsylvania State Capitol that allows student lobbyists to meet politicians.
This event helped chemistry and biochemistry professor Loyd Bastin realize how relatively easy it is to meet with state lawmakers. Bastin works at Widener University, which has an ACS-approved chemistry program.
Bastin prepares students in his chemistry courses for the Day on the Hill event. They each summarize a bill that interests them and present it in class. The students then collectively decide which bills to pursue. After researching, they create a white paper with a bulleted summary and supporting evidence for the bill. They also ask fellow students for feedback and gather postcards with messages in support of a bill. In Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the students hand deliver the materials to the congressional representatives of the postcard writers and their own districts.
In May 2021 I found unexpected success when I decided to stray from the imposed curriculum, and instead design a research project with a group of advanced chemistry students. This was a decision that has changed my view of education and how science is taught in our high schools.
Having no specific ideas about how to achieve our desired goal, the students and I took held a 90-minute brainstorming session to think of new ways we could meet our need for doing science while staying within the curriculum. To generate student thinking, I asked questions like, What do you want to be when you grow up?, What led you to take chemistry?, and What things did you love as a kid about science? As students offered responses, we explored the topics together.
For inspiration, we scoured the internet and class resources, including a variety of scientific magazines and chemistry-related nonfiction books. This group of students was particularly well-suited for the task, as most had been with me for three chemistry years by this point, and the class culture had a strong level of trust and respect. (Note: Because this was a unique group of students and circumstances, if I were to assign this type of project in the future, I might try to provide students with a slightly more intentional task, while retaining the autonomy of the class brainstorming process.)
This open-ended style of brainstorming was important because it gave all the students opportunities to contribute ideas without fear of rejection. Rather than immediately dissecting an idea into pros and cons, we focused building a larger list of ideas (which we would look at more closely later). Doing so promoted a team culture, and also gave the students time to individually process the information, possibly inspiring deeper ideas. Creating the feeling of safety and acceptance reinforced the foundation of the group, and enriched the quality of work that resulted. I did not support or criticize any idea, and I participated in the brainstorming process as a member of the think tank, not the instructor.
By the end of the brainstorming session, we had decided that, to maximize collaboration, our new investigation should be a class project that could be completed during the final 7-8 days of class left in the year.
Two students were interested in adding in their skills from their statistics class, so they discussed statistical analyses they could use to interpret or validate the data collected for each test. This became their self-assigned task, in addition to their primary contributions, to complete once data was fully collected.
The students acknowledged several constraints of the study, including the small sample size, limited time, and lower precision instrumentation. They accepted that the study was not perfect, but were excited to see how it would turn out, and their engagement levels were high.
By the end of Day 2, we had a working list of analyses for which we would write experimental procedures during the following class period. The students decided to test six qualities of the water samples: conductivity (Vernier probes), total solids, pH paper values (universal pH paper), pH (Vernier probes), taste/flavor (best to worst, numerically), and surface tension (drops on a penny).
Slightly flawed though the study might have been, for these students, it was the first time they had ever designed an entire study from scratch without any interventions from their instructor. The importance of not intervening cannot be emphasized enough. For the students, the experience lets them engage in the scientific process by designing a study. It was important for students to have complete ownership of the procedures, ideas, execution, and data analysis. At the end of the experience, I led a discussion about such things as the issues related to having a taste test, the drop count on a penny, and the subjective nature of interpreting color on a pH strip. Until then, my role was to make sure the students were safe, help them collect supplies, divide specific tasks between groups, and take notes for myself of my observations and reflections as they worked.
On Day 3, in the interest of time and collaboration, we divided the six procedures among the groups for writing. The only guidance I gave them was for each group to think about their data set and decide how their data table would best be constructed based on the result values. Procedures needed to be easy to follow and detailed so that if someone wanted to, they could repeat exactly what we did.
As they worked, I heard student conversations include words like qualitative, quantitative, accuracy, precision, significant figures, and multiple trials. They discussed the general precision of instruments used in our classroom and what significant figures should be used in recording their data and calculations. This was all happening organically, without my intervention.
Each group wrote their procedure in Google Docs and projected it to the class for review and editing in real time. For this to work well, the classroom climate needs to feel safe and collaborative for every student. Building safe relationships should start from the first day of class in order for students to feel comfortable by the time a project occurs.
Finally, I combined all the shared testing procedures from Google Docs into one final draft document to share with all students. We spent the majority of a class period editing the procedures one by one, as a class.
The conductivity probe analysis generated one surprising result when one sample in each group recorded a conductivity value that was three times greater than any of the other samples. This built up excitement surrounding the identification of the samples when testing was concluded.
When the identity of each water sample was revealed, students learned that the sample from the school water fountain was the one that had a conductivity over three times greater than the bottled water samples, and it was also preferred in the taste test. These results inspired more student questions, such as, Do the substances that cause a high conductivity improve the taste of water? and What substances are present in the school water that are not present in the bottled water?
Students worked independently to write a paragraph about their experience performing a research project, and a more formalized report including introduction, conclusion, error analysis, and opportunities for further study were divided between groups for completion. Observing my students naturally noticing correlations in data and asking further questions regarding whether the correlations were actually causal, restored my passion for teaching and solidified for me the notion that students need the opportunity to participate in a real scientific process while in high school. In my opinion, our hyper-focus on state testing scores and curriculum pacing has caused us to lose the most important aspect of our subject matter.
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