provocative opinion Rules Minimize Student Interest in Chemistry Marla Sedotti and John Tanaka School of Education and Department of Chemistry, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06266 The future of chemistry in the United States is in jeopardv. Almost a eeneration aeo. science education became a concern with tKe 1aunchingof'~~utnik. The response to that narticular concern was the establishment of the National Science Foundation. Now new threats to the well being of chemistry are emerging. Yet no organized response is in sight. What are the signs signaling troubled waters? The recent Science Talent Search quizzed the 300 winners about their career interests, and 101 indicated an interest in medicine. Onlv " eieht indicated an interest in chemistrv! A lareer number (10) of the Science Talent Search winners indicated that they planned a nonscience career. An additional 14 indicated an interest in social science. Another anecdotal 0bSeNation is that an increasine number of the superstars entering the honors program a t t h e author's uniiersity over t h e b a s t several years are indicating an interest in law. Over the previous decade, the superstars were indicating interests in science, enpineering, or medicine. (Perhaps students are opting to ioreiather than he gored!) A distressingly small number of students are entering science fairs. Enthusiasm is elevated in the seventh and kighth grades, but i t drops off precipitously in high school. Chemistry is not taught until after the droo off in interest takes dace! The rules and regulations regarding the usage of chemicals is making chemistry hard t o do. Let's face it. Most of us became fascinated with chemistry because of the reactions of chemicals. Decompositions and syntheses were fun. The smells, buhbles, and precipitates were wondrous to behold. Now much of this is outlawed. If not outlawed, having.fun with chemicals is strongly discouraged. If Science Fairs were designed to stimulate chemical ex. perimentation, it is not succeeding exrept with a very small group. Science Fair winners are those projects that are by and laree "orofessional." The oolish and soohistiration necessary to succeed can seldom be done a t home by a student workine indenendentlv. I t reouires a mentor. Winners. as often ab; not, i a v e the supportbf a family member or f k i l y friend not onlv with scientific euidance but often with equipment andlor access to researclh laboratories. Most studenis without access to this support resource become discouraged and do not initiate a Science Fair project. Science teachers are hard pressed to suggest catchy research projects. Most cannot do i t for large numbers of students. Even those actively involved in research would find coming up with 20 or more novel ideas per year a burdensome task. In addition, science teachers have neither the budget nor facilities to sunnort laboratow studies for even 10% of their students. Time for counseling or guiding students undertaking proiects is also almost nonexistent. I t has also been sueeested 'karlier that by the time students have enough chem&y to
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Some of the material in this article was presented by theauthors at the 1Mh Biennial Conference on Chemical Education at Purdue.
initiate a project, other factors are in play. Students are working t o earn money for college. There is a preoccupation with the college application procedures. Biology (not the classroom variety) becomes important not only with the harvest moon, but also in all the seasons. If Science Fair projects are only reaching the few scientifically privileged, does this mean that Science Fairs should he condemned? The answer is no. In whatever way any student can be "turned on" to chemistrv. that route should be fostered. What better way t o develop excitement about cbemistm than t o workunder sunervision withmaterials that mieht be banned from high schbol laboratories? What better way to engender interest in chemistry than to apprentice in a real laboratory? The concern is that the Science Fair route stimulates only a very few t o chemistry. Whatever the percentage of students involved in Science Fairs, i t is really the next 25 percentile that should produce the bulk of the chemists for the next generation. I t is just this group that is being exposed to chemiphobia. Chemicals equal toxicity. The practice of chemistry causes problems for society. Without chemistry, there would be no air oollution. water nollution. and toxic waste dumps. One cannot be a hkro by gkng intochemistry. The onlv wav the cheminhobia trend can be counteracted is by deveioping an interesi in chemistry. Learning about the metric system and the mole concept in a chemistry course is not enough. There has t o be the "gee whiz!" that interested us in chemistry. We are proposing that there be a program supplemental to the Science Fair program. Whereas Science Fair projects relegate to the honorable mention status those humdrum projects that are well done but result in the"cardboard box fedtooned with ereoe naucr" exhibit for a Srienre Fair. these very projects wouid de encouraged in the Student eke arch Project (SRP). By whatever Madison Avenue name this alternate program is eventually called, we will refer to i t as the S R P for the purposes of this discussion. The SRP will emphasize problem solving, the scientific method, and ingenuity. The emphasis will be on the laboratory notebook and a final research report. The SRP should be based on a guidebook that discusses the standards of notebook keeping and the writing of a research report. The guidebook should also give instruction on searching the literature. Research ideas should be presented in the guidebook along with illustrative examples. For example: Can an analytical procedure be developed to test whether a pancake syrup is maple syrup or sugar water with maple flavoring? 1. Learn what you can about maple syrup. 2. Learn what you can about sugars. 3. One wav to characterize maole svruo is bv its mineral content. Can an&sis for anvof the miner& found maole swuo " .be used for characterization?If so, develop such a method. 4. Another way to differentiate maple syrup from sugar is by its
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ability to rotate plane polarized light. Lwk up the values for maple sugar and cane sugar. Look up the principles of apolarimeter. Can you construct a polarimeter with readily available materials? There will he more emphasis placed on involvement and the research process rather than the result. A student with negative or inconclusive results might win plaudits if the research approach and ingenuity were to be superior. The selection of prohlems will be those that can heundertaken a t home or after school in the school laboratory. The emphasis will be away from expensive instrumentation. The principal mentor will he a text rather than the teacher or a scientist friend. By structuring the research, the SRP program can be incorporated as the honors component of the chemistry course. By limiting the challenge, some of the selective nonparticipation in Science Fairs might be overcome. The most difficult phase of the SRP is in identifying
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suitable prohlems. The prohlems cannot he trivial. The prohlems should offer several pathways that might be selected. The prohlems must be done without resorting t o carcinogenic or other "dangerous" chemicals. The number of suitable problems will be far fewer than the number of students involved in the S R P program. However, if standardized ACS exams are viable. whv cannot "standardized" S R P ~ r o b l e m s be viable? The deveiopment of the catalog of the SRP prohlems is a challenge that can be met only by the input of a number of creative chemical educators. Identifying analytical and physical chemical prohlems requiring measurements are going to be easier than identifying prohlems in synthetic inorganic or organic chemistry. How to incorporate the excitement of chemical reactions without using "nasty" chemicals will be the supreme challenge. Chemistry is in trouble. The best minds must he recruited to change the current drift of chemistry.
