BOOK AND MEDIA REVIEW pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc
Book Review of Science Education and Civic Engagement: The SENCER Approach Brittland K. DeKorver* Department of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin—Madison, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, United States
not escape the SENCER influence: in 2003, a specialized SALG was developed for use in SENCER courses. Many of this book’s authors presented results from using the SENCER-SALG instrument in their course(s). One of the six elements of an effective SENCER course is assessment, and this chapter provides an essential tool for the assessment of learning outcomes. The SALG instrument and its variations are available, for free, online.1 Instructors who are considering incorporating SENCER ideals would benefit from reading the candid experiences of these authors. They explain the difficulties they faced in the initial and subsequent implementations of the SENCER courses: more intensive preparation, constant revision, renewing partnerships and collaborations each semester. They also speak glowingly about the rewards: positive feedback from students, increased enjoyment of teaching, and greater self-efficacy as an instructor. Mark Masthay describes how he has made gradual changes to implement SENCER principles in his nonmajors chemistry course, teaching the content through topics such as melanoma and evolution. His incremental approach and humble voice seem to be the most accessible to instructors who may not have the time or freedom to completely build a SENCER course. Instructors of all levels of chemistry will find examples of how to employ SENCER ideals in this book. It is not uncommon to find societal contexts for content in introductory chemistry courses; in this book, Jack F. Eichler describes how topics in a general chemistry course for majors and nonmajors were covered through the topic of air quality, and Kristen J. Leckrone taught an analytical chemistry course to chemistry majors via water quality of the Chicago River. Although SENCER is intended for use in all STEM fields, this book focuses on implementation in chemistry courses. Science Education and Civic Engagement: The SENCER Approach also provides many examples of collaboration with instructors from different departments and programs and members from the community. Steven J. Bachofer’s course epitomizes this. Not only was his general science course linked with a sociology course, the students did fieldwork analyzing environmental risk at an EPA Superfund site and hosted a lab experiment for middle and high school students in the local afterschool program. These illustrate the endless opportunities for instructors to deepen established relationships and form new collaborations. The majority of this book is an in-depth description of the implementation of SENCER courses. Potential readers can already find many examples of SENCER courses available online,
Science Education and Civic Engagement: The SENCER Approach edited by Richard D. Sheardy. Oxford University Press: New York, 2010, 209 pp. ISBN 978-0841225534 (Hardcover), $150.00.
Science Education for New Civic Engagements and Responsibilities (SENCER) is a faculty development program and a community of practice with the goal of engaging students in a civic issue through which STEM content can be taught. Some members of the SENCER community presented their work at the national meeting of the American Chemical Society in the fall of 2008 in a symposium titled “Science Education and Civic Engagement: The SENCER Approach”. That symposium was the basis for this book. The book begins by offering a brief history of SENCER and description of its ideals in a chapter by Wm. David Burns. In the next chapter, Eliza Reilly describes the creation and purpose of the SENCER models, which are exemplary courses that subscribe to the SENCER philosophy. These models are to serve as inspiration for innovation, not as ready-made courses to be implemented by other instructors. The third chapter, authored by Richard D. Sheardy and Richard C. Jones, gives an outline of two SENCER courses that have been implemented in the Department of Chemistry and Physics at Texas Woman’s University. The success of those courses has prompted further development of SENCER programs and courses at the TWU. They also highlight other courses in biology and mathematics that incorporate a civic engagement component. From this, the reader begins to grasp that implementation of SENCER ideals is not an all-or-nothing approach and that a wide spectrum of “SENCER-esque” courses exist. In Chapter 4, Cynthia Maguire and Jennifer da Rosa provide a detailed look at the two SENCER courses described in the previous chapter: Introduction to Environmental Chemistry: Global Perspectives, and Climate Change: A Human Perspective. They describe the course outcomes, format, materials, assignments, and evaluations. The next four chapters also provide descriptions of the implementation of SENCER ideals into various chemistry courses at different institutions. In the penultimate chapter, Deborah L. Illman outlines a science-writing curriculum at the University of Washington. At first, her discussion seems out of place; there is not even one mention of SENCER in the entire chapter. However, it is clear that the program does uphold SENCER ideals, providing realworld contexts for science content and requiring students to engage with their communities. In the final chapter and its nine appendices, Stephen B. Carroll provides the reader with information about the Student Assessment of Learning Gains (SALG) instrument. Even SALG could Copyright r 2011 American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.
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dx.doi.org/10.1021/ed200469b | J. Chem. Educ. 2011, 88, 1356–1357
Journal of Chemical Education
BOOK AND MEDIA REVIEW
so the purchase of the book might be superfluous.2 It would have been interesting to read an account of a SENCER course implemented in a middle school- or high school-level science course, or hear about the SENCER experience from a student’s perspective. Another limitation was the frequent typos and other minor errors that distracted from the content of the text. However, this book provides many great examples of how to implement civic engagement in science courses and will be useful to any instructor who would like to know more about the SENCER approach.
’ AUTHOR INFORMATION Corresponding Author
*E-mail:
[email protected].
’ REFERENCES (1) SALG Instructors’ Welcome Page. http://salgsite.org/ (accessed Jul 2011). (2) Science Education for New Civic Engagements and Responsibilities Model Courses Resource Page. http://www.sencer.net/Resources/models.cfm (accessed Jul 2011).
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dx.doi.org/10.1021/ed200469b |J. Chem. Educ. 2011, 88, 1356–1357
