Chemical Education Today
Letters Chemistry as General Education Nivaldo Tro, in his article “Chemistry as General Education” (1), states that “our current non-major chemistry courses cover too much consumer chemistry and ignore some of the big contributions of chemistry to human knowledge. [Furthermore] our chemistry majors courses…prepare students for majoring in science [but] do not address the issues that are important for liberal education.” Both of these points are good ones, and Tro makes some excellent suggestions for topics to include in the non-majors course in order to rectify some of these problems. Regarding Tro’s second point, I wish to take this opportunity to remind readers that we at Willamette University have developed a very successful Case Study/Spiral Approach to the major’s introductory chemistry course (2). The second semester of this course is entirely centered on eight case studies (e.g., lasers, fossil fuels, air pol-
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lution, blood) that allow us to connect chemistry to life in the real world, and in this manner “address issues that are important for liberal education”. I encourage JCE readers to read Tro’s suggestions and also to learn more about our unusual course. Literature Cited 1. Tro, N. J. J. Chem. Educ. 2004, 81, 54–57. 2. Brink, C. P.; Goodney, D. E.; Hudak, N. J.; Silverstein, T. P. J. Chem. Educ. 1995, 72, 530–532. Todd P. Silverstein Department of Chemistry Willamette University Salem, OR 97301
[email protected] Vol. 82 No. 6 June 2005
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