Report of the
Fifth Biennial Conference on Chemical Education Colorado State University-Fort Collins, Colorado-24-28 July, 1978
Conference Chairman J. J. Lagowski, University of Texas at Austin
Introduction The 1978 Biennial Conference on Chemical Education is institutions, and graduate schools; (h) administrators concerned with the financing of chemical education; (c) potential the latest in the series initiated in 1970 hv the Division of (:hen~icnlEducation at SIIOW~I;ISS-at-Aspt:n, Colorado. The employers of chemists; and (d) researchers because they are initial cunf(wnce attemnted to define the r d r of chemical heloina to shaoe the future nature of chemistry. ~ny';.onfere'nceis tht. producr of many indi\;idual efforts; education in society. ~ ( unofficial e working theme for the Fifth Biennial Conference was: "Anticioatine the 21st Centhis one is no exreotiun. D.K. I.ava\lee oro~idlnimaanificent coordination for the numerous detaiis at Colorado State tury." As rhtmical edumtr,rs, u,e are rapidly upproaching th12 University which necessarily arise in a conference of this type. time when thestudents ule teach will practice tlwirpn,fision The staff of the Office of Conferences and Institutes at Colin the '?lit century, and, therdure, it upptwred reaimi~hlrro orado State University is to he commended for its considerable a t t m p t tnaddrr.ss this [mint oivit.w.The ~r~~lrk~msassociate~i efforts to provide for the human needs of the 400 conferees, with chemical education in its hroadestsense arise from a thus freeing them to concentrate on the intellectual stimulacomplex intersection of many factors. The very nature of the tion of the formal oroeram. Numerous individuals were insubject is changing a t a steady pace, and the details of these ('onfrrence. We \~olvedin the planningof thr Fifth Hien~~ial changes must be translated into teaching students with widely a debt uferatltude. I.'lnallv. numerous culowe each of t h ~ m differing.. exoectations and eoals. Underoinnine these oneoine . .. .. leagues have contributed iheir expertise, opinions, and asp r w x s r s arr critici~lfinatwid questims which must hc. arlsistance in program planning and organization; we offer them dnwed if new chemical kncwledee is tu he disnnwrrrl and wt. are to provide a viable educational process. In addition, we heartfelt, if anonymous, thanks. must accommodate the increasing number of young chemists The conference was organized around a series of invited who choose to utilize their professional skills and interests in plenary lectures, contributed oral and poster papers, symnon-traditional fields. posia, and "birds-of-a-feather-sessions;"some of the latter were spontaneously organized during the conference to hring We attempted to bring together speakers and to obtain together conferees t o discuss a variety of topics of mutual inpapers which might address some aspects of these problems. terest. This report is organized according to these main eleThe conference was designed to encourage a dialogue among ments of the conference by using the talents of the (more or those interested in the education of chemists: (a) teachers a t less) "volunteer" reporters indicated. all levels-secondary schools, community colleges, four-year
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Journal of Chemical Education
Sponsors The generous financial support for the Fifth Biennial Conference by the following sponsors is gratefully acknowledged. Celanese Corporation Dow Chemical Company E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company Procter and Gamble Company Rohm and Haas Company Union Carbide
PLENARY LECTURES Several common ideas wtrr diacernihle in the plenary Iecturec. Among thrse were: the decline in uniwriity and collrge enrollments and how to cone with them. how to orenare . chemists for changing job markets, how to improve "scientific literacv." and how to insure continuine financial suonort . for cbemi& education taken in its broadest sense. Georee C. Pimentel. Deoutv Director of the National ~ c i e n c e ~ ~ o u n d a t idoonc, n m k & l the decline in college and universitv enrollments as well as the more precipitous decline in the nimber of persons seeking advanced degrees (1). Interestingly, the number of persons seeking BS degrees in chemistry is increasing, undoubtedly in response to the need for properly trained persons in regulatory and environmental areas. Pimentel sees an increasing emphasis on the training of persons who will not he conventional "bench" chemists, but will be employed in "relevant" occuoations. Since everyone is affected by technological change, and, in a democratic society, everyone is expected to contribute, Pimentel suggests i t is essential to raise the scientific literacy of the entire population. The highly successful Chem Study Program was limited because it was directed toward students who would have taken chemistry whether or not this program existed. He indicated that the challenge now facing high schools is to provide a science experience for the remainder of the students, i.e., those who would never take a high school chemistry course. One way to do this, he suggested, is to start earlier in the students career, such as producing an "interesting and pleasurable science analog to Sesame Street" directed toward ore-first eraders. Pimentel indicated that a Chem study-li
