letters Chemical Boot Camp
To the Editor: In his "Provocative Opinion" in the June issue of JOURNAL, Dr. Davenport offers an interesting solution to the problem of the freshman curriculum. Let me first point out a problem he must solve in implementing his scheme, and then present some other, hut not necessarily better, proposals. Much of the material being displaced by the group theoreticians from inorganic courses is of two basic natures. One is descriptive chemistry, sometimes complete with indigestible tables of numerical values of properties, and the other is qualitative discussions of concepts such as acidity, complexation, quantum numbers, etc., of which the classic presentation is probably the early chapters of T. Moeller's "Inorganic Chemistry." The former type of material has tended to be displaced from the freshman course into the higher years since the early 1950's on two rationales: First, that it is dry as dust, boring to hoth student and instructor, irrelevant unless one intends to practice chemistry, not representative of modern chemistry, sure to discourage students from pursuing chemistry, and so on far into the night. Second, that it is better taught against a background of correlating theoretical principles from physical chemistry. The latter type of material is frequently included in physical chemical treatments of freshman chemistry. Perhaps it fre~uentlysuffers from a failure to resolve at the outset the question of balancing a survey of broad areas with the exemplary treatment in depth of selected topics. When Dr. Davenport implements his proposed inorganically-oriented freshman program, possibly he will have interesting comments on how he dealswith these issues. Among other possible designs for a freshman course, let me suggest these. THIS
1) If descriptive chemistry is to be included, let us provide a. contrast to its high school treatment by working on s. basis of anions. (See for example chapters in Markhsm and Smith's "General Chemistry," Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1954.) 2) If the class be one with educational gods in discipline3 apart from science, let us examine in a historical frame of reference the development of major chemical industries-fertilizer and agricultural chemicals, base metals, textile fibers and dyes. Stress can he laced on the basic chemical discoveries., the teehn o l o p d pnnlurr~ot~ n w l use, 1l.r eeonon~irHUJplli!waI c l l n ~ t r lnr~!T$,wupluyn~mt,w ~ m a) d p+!hIy iz.tcrdi,riplitury l w ~ u r in^ by englwrr.% hintonan., e w s m i i t s , etc , can be JrvcL,p~d.
Would not one semester of this approach nicely complement a. previous semester of chemical theory and descriptive material? 3) If only part of t,he class will proceed to science majors, it would be interesting to develop a freshman course designed to answer the probahly unstated question, "Should I become a chemist?" This could he composed of topics selected to illustrate in lectures and to demand in labs careful manipulation and accurate observation (preparative inorganic, possibly including unstable compounds like Fremy's salt), meticulous measurement (titrations, measurement of colligative properties), skill in handling geometrical and algebraic models (crystal lattices, pH expressiow, phase diagrams), thorough library work, etc. 4 ) If the class is committed to science majors, I offer this more radical pattern. Let the ficienee departments jointly devise and offer a major lab in Scientific Observat,ion and Measurement to which each contributes experiments involving the sort of qoalitative and quantitative description typical of its discipline. Let each department offer a one-semester lecture and tutorial coume introducing its discipline, and a second onesemester course laying m&e groundwork for advancedbtudy. A student might be required to take three introductory semester-courses, and one follow-up semester-course in his future major field. The possibility of carrying a second follow-up course toward a future interdisciplinary major should be considered. This program, while hopefully stimulat,ing to the top students, should provide for a t least some goodly part of Dr. Davenport's lower 90y0 the chance to feel out the enemy in the first semester, and tackle his most interesting formations with their best forces after the Christmas pause for reinforcements.
To the Editor: We wish bo express our wholehearted agreement with the criticisms of "sophisticated" freshman chemistry courses and text books given by Davenport 145, 419 (1968) 1 and Gehrke [45, 991 (1968) ] in the June issue of THIS JOURNAL. We also wish to add two more arguments against such courses and textbooks. The very small minority of students who have the ability and the background in chemistry, mathematics, and physics to understand a book of this type should not be taking the course. They are ready for and deserve an honest physical chemistry course. The pedagogical level of most of these books is low and usually has an inverse relation to the level of ',sophistication." Some of the books that discuss nuclear chemistry, thermodynamics, stat,istical mechanics, quantum mechanics, rate theory, and other "modern" topics are appallingly bad. They attempt to he hoth rigorous and simple but are merely confusing.
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Volume 45, Number 1 1 , November 1968
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749
