Chemical Education Today
Fundamentals of General, Organic and Biological Chemistry, 2nd ed. John McMurry and Mary E. Castellion. Prentice Hall: Upper Saddle River, NJ, 1996. xxvi + 813 pp. Figs. and tables. ISBN 0-13-342288-7. $77.67. This text, mainly intended as a general chemistry text for students in health or life science related majors, does a beautiful job of incorporating topics and examples to which students can relate. Our chemistry and engineering majors generally think in much the same way as we do, approaching problems from a conceptual direction, finding intuitive methods of solving problems unlike any they have seen before, by application of the overall concept. They prefer equations and mathematical approaches. The nursing and other life science or agricultural majors, however, are more often math phobic. They are more “people oriented”, or they wouldn’t be in their major. They need to be able to identify with the material on a personal level in order to build understanding. This text accomplishes the task of personifying chemistry by using such examples as medicinal dosage administration in molarity calculations and application asides and “Interludes” specific to medical and agricultural uses. All students can relate to the time-release cold capsules, gas in solution in a soft drink, and pH of household products that the authors use to illustrate concepts. The text is, above all, readable, without sacrificing depth of content. Students without a strong background in the sciences, or who have a perception of inability to “do” science, need a strong text with clear examples and illustrations on which they can lean heavily. This text provides that comfort level and does not resort to the more usual “I’m smarter than you are” terminology and vocabulary these students find intimidating. The problem examples are worked out in a straightforward fashion, going from the
word problem, to overt identification of known and needed information as a first step in problem solution, on to final solution without the undue length and complication that students find confusing and intimidating. This helps students who are not confident in “word problems” to build the skills necessary to go on to solving similar but not identical problems. This pattern of problem solving raises the student from the pure recall level of knowledge to the analysis and synthesis level, in a natural and comfortable progression. Sample problems are followed immediately with practice problems, to encourage immediate student practice, rather than relegating practice only to a later time at the end of the chapter. Pedagogically, this works for the concrete learner who needs frequent reiteration and practice to build the skills, rather than the whole concept and then problem solving from the overarching concept. Each chapter starts with a single clear statement of direction and chapter goals. The students know what they should be able to do when the chapter is finished, which helps them to pull out for emphasis “what will be on the test”. The goals spell out specifically, in concrete terms, exactly what the student needs to look for and learn, and this guides the reading for the student. The text also makes good use of color in illustrative diagrams. The concrete learners in these majors will benefit from the clear conceptual diagrams and will be able to develop their level of understanding without having to construct the mental image independently. I think what I liked most about this text is that is does not overemphasize environmental issues in order to make the chemistry seem more relevant to the students. Chemistry does not have to depend on environmentalist scare tactics in order to find relevance for nonscience majors. There is also no need to water down the content for life science majors. This text does neither. Lois B. Krause Clemson University Clemson, SC 29634
Vol. 74 No. 11 November 1997 • Journal of Chemical Education
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