Chemistry and the Sea: A Course for Nonscientists This course, taught successfully for two years, focuses on a chemical interpretation of the natural phenomena of the sea, and provides a perfect setting for a discussion of chemistry in relationship to biology, geology, and other fields of oceanography. The early part of the course was devoted to an introduction to the general features of oceans. This introductory material was used later in the interpretation of chemical phenomena. For example, one cannot talk about the geochemical cycle without a consideration of continental drift, or about the distribution of oxygen, salinity, pH, chemical nutrients, ete. in sea water without a knowledge of ocean currents and seasonal distributions of zooplankton and phytoplankton. We then spent about a week reviewing atomic structure, bonding, concentration units, and the salient features of the periodic table. No attempt was made to survey basic freshman chemistry, for this would detract fram our main purpose. Instead, we only discussed chemistry which was directly applicable to understanding the marine environment. pH becomes a "relevant" concept when viewed in terms of its effect an salmon reproductivity or when used as a measure of COz production and uptake in sea water due to respiration and photosynthesis of plankton. Same of the other topics covered in the remainder of the caurse were solar radiation and the marine environment (same basic spectroscopy was included here), composition of sea water and Marcet's principle, residence times of the elements in sea water, salinity: its measurement and variation, chemical processes for recovering mineral resources (of course we discussed the quest for gold fram the sea), chemical nutrient cycles and biomass distribution, solubility of gases and their transport across the air-sea interface, head budget of the earth, bioluminescence, the chemistry of volcanoes, and the production of fresh water from sea water. The course presentation also included lecture demonstrations, films, and guest lecturers from the departments of Geology and Biology. A course such as this is truly interdisciplinary and can be most effectively taught when faculty from various departments participate. There was no laboratory. Additional information is available upon request from the author. 1 Present
address: Department of Chemistry, University of New Hampshire, Durham, N. H. 03824.
N. Dennis Chasteen' Lawrence University Appleton, Wisconsin 54911
56 /Journal of Chemical Education
