AN INSPIRING COURSE IN INTRODUCTORY CHEMISTRY L. ROBINSON, 'I'ITWSVILLE HIGHSCHOOL, %sVILLPI, ERNEST
PENNSYLVANIA
It is the belief of the author that a teacher of high-school chemistry should be able to originate and develop a course in appreciative chemistry that will truly inspire every student; that no textbook ever written can do this for him; that any good modern text may be used as a base. Such a course, succeeding admirably, is here outlined. Originality the Key Note Since symbols are the chemist's shorthand, they are learned thoroughly the first day (i. e., symbols of the common elements). A short history of chemistry is given by the teacher, followed by an inspirational lecture. The course for the year is outlined to the students. Then comes work, hard, intensive, satisfying work: a study is made of the atom and its structure and properties, of the molecule, gas laws, valence, formulas, equations, chemical calculations. All this in the first two weeks. Then comes the reward: a chemistry club is organized-"Protons" is the name this year-a reporter is elected, a play committee is named, programs are arranged. From now on every week or ten days is a unit, with all the study wrapped around the life of a famous chemist, often contemporary. First was Joseph Priestley week. We lectured and studied about carbon dioxide; we experimented with i t in the laboratory; we had a Joseph Priestley program. The program was interesting, talked +bout all over school. Carbon dioxide became romantic; Joseph Priestley is loved. The paper about the man who had originated carbonated beverages told of a preacher who dared to think, was persecuted, burned out of house and home, chased from his native England, sought refuge in our own state of Pennsylvania, loved chemistry, did experiments while making sermons, was influential in organizing the great American Chemical Society, discovered oxygen, made soft drinks. No less appreciated was the paper which told of dry ice, the use of carbon dioxide in the treatment of insane people, in fire extinguishers, in the manufacture of baking and washing sodas, in baking, in soft drinks. One of the group of five conducting the program gave a demonstration with a bottle of ginger ale and a tube of lime water, with dry ice and tap water, equations being written on the board. Another explained a display showing how sodas are made from limestone and salt, how pop is manufactured from coal and flavored water, sweetened. An instructive and attractively decorated poster giving the number of pounds of carbon dioxide used annually in the United States in the making of sodas and soft drinks was exhibited. Three minutes were assigned the teacher for a carbon dioxide "pep" talk. The class was then treated to pop, donated by a local mauu1100
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factnrer of soft drinks, and blotters bearing a soft drink advertisement were distributed to all. Next came Antoine Lavoisier week and oxygen; Alfred Nobel week and nitrogen; Irving Langrnuir week and hydrogen; Edward Goodrich Acheson week and carbon (lubricants). A full week was devoted to the study of the atom. Though there were many men about whom we might have woven that week's work, we finally chose Theodore William Richards. One week Svaute August Arrhenius dominated our classroom, his name in bright letters, with the single word IONS beneath, greeting us from the blackboard each morning as we entered. The boys, Group 111, had a good program. One had made a model atom, grotesquely magnified, clipped off the rotating electrons, leaving an ion. Another had made a model cell for theelectrolysis of sodium chloride. A third did electroplating,thenreversed the poles and removed the plate. He also compared the strength of acetic and hydrochloric acid by passing an electric current through solutions of each, in series with a light. The poster picturing the industries dependent on electrolytic dissociation, portraying Arrhenius, was good, as were also several papers prepared on pertinent subjects. The name of Herman Frasch displaced that of Arrhenius. At the program invisible pictures were painted in a most visible manner by precipitating sulfides; a rubber display was exhibited; papers read; a new poster of brilliant hue displayed; and the moving picture on "The Story of Sulfur" was shown. (To finish paying for the moving picture machine evening movie programs were given.) Other activities of the week included a day of discussion, a moving picture on rubber, a day in the laboratory preparing sulfur in its various fonns, and a day of demonstration. Our next unit will require more time, as it is desired to study sulfuric, hydrochloric, and nitric acid together. Our inspiration will come from the work and life of Sir William Henry Perkius. Lending color to the program will be a paper on dyes. In the meantime we will enjoy a trip, by movie, "Through the Oil Fields of Mexico;" we will recall "The Modern Hercules" (dynamite) shown when we studied nitrogen. It will be a thrilling study, what with adventurous laboratory work, novel demonstrations, interesting discussions. Oh yes, we also take trips to near-by industrial plants. The Cracking Plant will fit in nicely, since we live in Titusville, the scene of the first oil well ever drilled. So it goes. We will find time for a few simple unknowns at the end of the year. The course is inspirational because the lives of the chemists are an inspiration in themselves; it is rational because the course is presented in organized units; it is successful because the student's interest is aroused the first day and never allowed to die down. Originality, that much sougbtafter element, is given full opportunity to develop. Each group arranges its own program, under guidance of the instructor. Each man appears
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before his class five times in the year, with his original contribution. once chairman of a meeting, and that meeting has to "go over."
He is
Character a Requisite to Success At the very beginning we agree that a strong character is one of the essentials to success, that we are more interested in developing character even than we are in learning chemistry. To that end mutual trust and coaperation is pledged. Since the purpose of tests is to help the student to check up on his progress, each frequently corrects his own paper, using the system outlined by the instructor. The teacher may not even ask the grade. Bad marks are, nevertheless, taken to heart, extra effort resulting. Notebooks are turned in but once a term. In the laboratory each student lists his own breakage in a common book conveniently placed. The instructor emphasizes the need of listing for the interest of all concerned all articles immediately as they are broken. Thus no injustice is done, no police attitude is required. Breakage bills are easily collected a t the end of the year. In practice it works here. Laboratory efficiency, attitude, neatness, offerings a t programs are easily checked. Laboratory experiments over, every desk is left scrupulously clean, lockers in order. Discussionsbefore and after laboratory work prove very beneficial. Notebooks are for the students, not for the teacher. Undue stress is not laid upon them. .No student deceives himself with the idea that a super notebook is going to p a v him in chemistry. Neat notebooks are, however, kept. Keen observation, clear reasoning, easily noted during discussions, are a t a premium, exalted, set up on a pedestal to be worshiped. Grades are never mentioned. "Square play," on an equal footing, is demanded as much of the teacher as of the student. Helps Available Most of the popular, modern books on chemistry, physics, and biology are included in the classroom science library. A good school library, containing sets of the latest editions of the best encyclopedias, is available for our use. An excellent public library is also a t our disposal. A notebook compiled by the author under the direction of Dr. G. W. Bennett of Grove City College, containing brief biographies of some hundred contemporary, American and foreign, famous chemists is a valuable asset. Harrow's "Eminent Chemists of Our Time" is worth its weight in gold. A light, large, airy, freshly painted laboratory lends inspiration. Good equipment is a blessing enjoyed. Though the design of the room is not the most modern, i t is such that convenience and lack of confusion are obtained. Bottles of reagents are not left on the desks, only the chemicals to be used in a given experiment being available on that day. This seems to
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be not only the most convenient but the most sane method for a high-school laboratory. The lecture room, with its banked seats, is equipped witha Micropticon, a 16-mm. moving picture machine, a large demonstration table, and display cases. Finally, and more important than all else, the closest cooperation is enjoyed between the superintendent, principal, chemistry teacher, and students. Academic Home Study. In the Aijril issue of the Modern Language Journal notice was taken of an announcement by a self-assembled number of commercial correspondence schools which conduct their ventures for commercial profit. Editorial comment suggested that this announcement paid no attention "to the extension or correspondence divisions of regular academic institutions." This comment seems to have given a wrong impression. To clarify the misunderstanding, additional explanation is due Extension Divisions. The regular academic institutions will not permit themselves t o be associated in any way with these commercial ventures. The extension work of universities, like all education, is organized t o promote enlightenment, t o advance intellectual interest and understanding, and t o further the spirit of leaming-not business profit. Nor does this imply any rdection upon any commercial incentives for profit-for that is of the nature of business, not education. For an entire generation, the University of Chicago has conducted home-study courses, and for almost a quarter of a century the University of Wisconsin has carried on a program of even broader and more inclusive scope, in that vocational as well as academic instruction has been included. The hom-study bulletins of these universities, as well as those of some forty other universities of the highest academic standards which are associated together in the National ~nivers?tyExtension Association, are universally available. I t will be of interest to make note here of the fact that a t the present time a national survey or study of correspondence-study instruction compared with residence teachine is being conducted by the University of Chicago, with the codperation of the national member institutions throughout the country. This is, of course, a study of comespondence-study teaching as conducted in universities of known and accepted standards, and, again, will make no account of the great number of exploiting commercial ventures that take advantage of a contemporary educational development. Records of thousands of students, whose home-study and campus-study achievements stand side hy H. side, are being studied and are furnishing remarkably illuminating results.-W. LIOHTY,Director of Extension Teaching, University of Wisconsin
Copper Won fmm Ore by Electrolysis. Small miners can now recover for the first time practically pure copper directly from sulfide ores by a method just discovered after a year's research by the school of mines and geology a t Washington State College. The method requires cheap hydroelectric power. Present methods of recovering copper ore involve smelting, and electrolysis is used only t o refine the metal. Only one previous attempt, made some 15years ago, a t obtaining practically pure copper directly from the ore by electrolysis was found in the historical researches undertaken. The details of the method will he published by the college.-Science Sem'ce
