Editorial Cite This: J. Chem. Educ. 2018, 95, 499−501
pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc
A Central Learning Outcome for the Central Science Thomas A. Holme*,† and James E. Hutchison‡ †
Department of Chemistry, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011 United States Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon 97403 United States
‡
ABSTRACT: Chemistry has served a unique historical role among the sciences by not only studying the world around us, but also creating the chemicals we study and use. The impacts of chemistry are accordingly more profound on earth and societal systems, and helping our students understand both the benefits and potential hazards of chemicals and chemical processes represents a core responsibility of chemistry education. Establishing an overarching learning outcome for chemistry courses presents a flexible approach for embracing the challenge posed by our unique history and catalyzing future contributions to society through the students we educate.
KEYWORDS: General Public, Curriculum, Interdisciplinary/Multidisciplinary, Safety/Hazards
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sometimes there are unintended outcomes. It is time that our discipline and our curriculum own both! The issue of transfer of knowledge is, of course, more wideranging than whether or not students can apply fundamental knowledge gained in the classroom to societal contexts.2,3 The students in our classes are chemistry novices, and it is common for novices to focus on specific details and miss underlying principles with greater explanatory power. The approach in most chemistry classes can best be described as reductionist, where emphasis is placed upon detailed descriptions of fundamental, yet narrow, principles. It has been suggested4 that there is a philosophical tension between the “manifest image” (directed toward the observable world) and the “scientific image” (directed toward theories and models of understanding). Newman has argued5 that this difference leads to a fundamental misconception for many students that hinders not only their ability to apply knowledge about chemistry, but to even learn about chemistry in the academic realm. The inclusion of a CLO provides a touchstone that allows educators to routinely connect content with the observable world. This approach helps students situate their chemistry knowledge within their everyday experience of chemicals across the entirety of our curriculum. In so far as the education of our students represents the way we influence the society we bequeath on the future, it is pedagogically essential to consider that the practice of chemistry has positive and negative impacts. This dual nature needs to be considered holistically so the positive impacts are maximized. Importantly, this facet of the incorporation of the CLO opens the door to enhancing content amenable to introducing systems thinking to our students. The invention of
rticulation of learning outcomes has become an important step in the framing of course curricula, but most instructors tend to consider outcomes that are defined around relatively compact concepts. We argue that such perspectives, while valuable, are incomplete. We suggest that an overarching, central learning outcome for chemistry courses is necessary to help students and educators forge a connection between microscopic chemical concepts and the world around them. The central learning outcome (CLO) that we propose is this: Chemicals have benef its and hazards, and these must be considered together. It is essential that we acknowledge both aspects. Chemicals have benefits: this is why we invent and produce them. The benefits that accrue from chemicals is why chemistry has elevated the standard of living in the developed world. Nonetheless, the same chemicals may pose hazards that are not intended. The benefit and hazard are intrinsically linked by the chemical structure. With the good comes the bad. Beyond the structure, the ways we produce and use chemicals influence the benefits and hazards. Chemists have the opportunity, and responsibility, to develop new chemicals, processes, and uses that maximize the benefit and minimize the hazard. Embracing an overarching learning outcome, while continuing the use of more common, fine-grained learning outcomes, provides an important opportunity to address learning needs that might otherwise go unmet. Perhaps the most important challenge that may be addressed by adopting the CLO is the tendency of students to separate everyday knowledge and classroom knowledge.1 While this separation may occur in any field of science that students study, chemistry is unique. Whereas other disciplines in the natural sciences traditionally study the world around us, chemistry has been, historically, the one science that also creates its future every day. This difference in creative orientation comes with many benefits, but © 2018 American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.
Published: April 10, 2018 499
DOI: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.8b00174 J. Chem. Educ. 2018, 95, 499−501
Journal of Chemical Education
Editorial
graduate chemistry curriculum represents a powerful and flexible way to begin helping students understand and value the role that their chemistry knowledge will play in shaping the future that they create.
the Haber−Bosch process did not create an unknown chemical; it made the production of NH3 more economical and quicker. Nonetheless, this capacity is reached via a mass and energy intensive process, and the resultant increase in the use of nitrogen in farming, while improving agricultural output, has also strained planetary boundaries.6 Thus, the concept of incorporating the CLO shows promise for enhancing student learning by considering positive and negative impacts, within the framework of several interacting systems. There are many content-rich, real-world examples that can be used to establish a curriculum inclusive of the CLO. Further, examples that explicitly consider benefits and hazards are amenable in any chemistry course. These ideas can be considered within a traditional curricular model or as emerging innovations for the curriculum.7−9 Ultimately, by including the importance of the benefits of chemistry and chemicals, it is possible to address the tendency of many of our students, and society, to focus only on hazards when considering the connection to societal issues, if they think of chemistry in the broader societal context at all. Another prime example that seems likely to resonate with students interested in majors in life sciences may be pharmaceuticals. Drugs have desired benefits and side effects. The goal in the pharma industry is to maximize the efficacy of the drug and minimize the side effects. Chemotherapy represents one example that has the potential to be generally familiar to students, while opening the door to discussions of current research and the role chemistry plays in the development of new treatments for disease. There are, nonetheless, implications for instructional time and materials development related to this proposal. Additional content topics, such as concepts related to toxicology, will likely have some impact on instructional time available for some traditional topics. At the same time, these topics will serve as an important bridge to the science content that most students, at least in the first two years of the undergraduate curriculum, find relatable to their own science majors. Current efforts to establish a “roadmap” to help educators identify routes to incorporate green chemistry throughout the curriculum represent an example of how this challenge of content balance might be approached.10 One concern that is often mentioned by educators for the adoption of new, context-based materials is a lack of background with the specific science around which a curricular proposal is designed. The proposed CLO need not engender this challenge, because it is not specific to any particular topic. There are many ways in which chemistry influences society (and society influences the course of chemical discovery). Instructors can embrace the overarching CLO and find examples within their own area of content expertise, precisely because chemistry is so central to understanding so many aspects of science and technology. Recognizing that most of our students will not be chemists, we should aim to place chemistry into their world context. The adoption of this proposed central learning outcome for chemistry will help students approach the challenges that have emerged for society with a more chemistry infused mindset. Einstein is supposed to have opined that problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them. We need to instill a new, expanded awareness of the role of chemistry in addressing the challenges we face in earth and societal systems, today and in the future. The idea of incorporating the proposed CLO throughout the under-
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AUTHOR INFORMATION
Corresponding Author
*E-mail:
[email protected]. ORCID
Thomas A. Holme: 0000-0003-0590-5848 James E. Hutchison: 0000-0003-2605-3226 Notes
Views expressed in this editorial are those of the authors and not necessarily the views of the ACS. Thomas A. Holme is a Morrill Professor in the Department of Chemistry, Iowa State University. His research has two distinct strands: chemical education research, and human computer interaction. He served as Director of the Examinations Institute of the American Chemical Society from 2002 to 2015, and conducts education research to improve the quality of information that can be obtained from exams and other forms of assessment. His current work in human computer interaction is focused on the development and testing of augmented reality interfaces for use in chemistry education. James E. Hutchison is the Lokey-Harrington Chair in Chemistry at the University of Oregon where he has pursued research and teaching in the areas of nanotechnology and materials and green chemistry. He served as the Founding Director of the ONAMI Safer Nanomaterials and Nanomanufacturing Initiative (SNNI); SNNI led efforts to ensure that the emerging field of nanotechnology developed responsibly, providing new technologies that are inherently safer (greener) by design, in order to protect health, the environment, and the workforce. He also led the development of the UO’s pioneering green organic chemistry curriculum and authored the first green chemistry textbook: Green Organic Chemistry: Strategies, Tools and Laboratory Experiments.
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REFERENCES
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(8) Haack, J. A.; Hutchison, J. E. Green Chemistry Education: 25 Years of Progress and 25 Years Ahead. ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng. 2016, 4 (11), 5889−5896. (9) Talanquer, V.; Pollard, J. Reforming a Large Foundational Course: Successes and Challenges. J. Chem. Educ. 2017, 94 (12), 1844−1851. (10) Voorhees, K. Green Chemistry Education Roadmap Charts the Path Ahead. Chem. Eng. News 2015, 93 (38), 46.
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DOI: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.8b00174 J. Chem. Educ. 2018, 95, 499−501
