JOHN H. WOODBURN, PhD 9208 Le Velle Drive Chevy Chase, Mayland 20015
Using Applied Chemistry to Tackle Motivation Problems We like to that chemistry is highly motivating in its own way. Nevertheless inadequately motivated students are all too often some of the most uncomfortable "lumps in our beds." If student interest and enthusiasm is a oroblem, try emphasizing the contributions chemistry makes today'; life stvle. This mav solve a oart of the pn~hlem. ~k~of our &dents retain the effkcts of the heavy emohasis on relevancv in press releases of a few vears back. These young people l i k e b fie1 that what they are study will take them somewhere they want to go. Facts, principles, and concepts must relate meaningfully to larger relationships. These young people prefer to learn in broad perspctives rather than to collect hits and pieces of disarticulated knowledge. To see a body of chemical knowledge and know-how culminate in yielding a solution to a significant problem can provide the integrating factor these students seek. This kind of reinforcement may well provide the motivation they need to make the most of whatever they have going for them in their pursuit of chemistrv. If our i&truction is to emphasize the applications of chemistrv. we need sources of a~orooriatedescriotions of chemistr& solutions to practici'prohlems. We also need assienments that will point our students in the direction we want them to go. The first of these needs is taken care of rather easilv. Many industries and governmental organizations provide eicelleni descriptions of chemicals heing produced and used to solve problems. The publications of the American Chemical Society as well as this Journal go a long way u ~ w a ~solving d the source problem. Because of his familiarity with "Taking Things Apart and I'utting'l'hinesTopether," theauthor will use this recent ACS pubfieation to i h s t r a t e kinds of assignments which emphasize applied chemistry. While creating the hook, the author leaned heavily on other publications which emphasize applied chemistry. Episodes were chosen on the basis of how clearly they brought out the principles and concepts we emphasize in our introductory courses. Class size quantities of the book are available a t quite reasonable cost. The specific mechanics of class assienments. of course. will depend 'on local environments and &rsonal ;caching style. The sueeeetions which follow stem from oractices which have workeiout fairly well when teaching several sections of the same course. Back issues of several publications and classroom sets of "Taking Things Apart and Putting Things Together" were availahle. Scripts on Applied Principles One assignment required each student to "prepare five to eight minutes of script dealing withone product of applied chemistry." They were allowed fifty minutes to prepare the script and could not refer to the book after this preparation period. On the following day, representative oral reports were given and all scripts were collected for grading purposes. The students were generally aware that the value of their scripts depended upon how well they revealed the applications of truly integrated concepts and principles of chemistry.
Student responses ranged far and wide. Madame Curie's isolation of polonium from pitchblende provided a good example of such basic ideas as solubility and precipitation. Research devoted to identifying and, hopefully, removing the addiction causing portion of the morphine molecule introduced the students to meanineful aoolications of conceots dealing with functional groups &d thkmake-up of somewhat comdex molecules. A closelv related episode dealt with modkcation of penicillin mol&ules to prohuce products that are uniquely effective against new strains of microorganisms. A more structured assienment asked the students to limit their presentations to citing applications of chemical principles and concepts which were touched on in their assigned articles-principles and concepts which had heen or would orobablv be touched on in the course. This modification aliowed a-larger fraction of the students to respond without using additional class sessions. Student responses to this modified assignment "visited" a wide array of chemical principles and concepts. A type of ion exchange was encountered in producing chemtempered glass and a version of electron transfer was touched on in a student's report on photochromic glass. Catalysis was involved in efforts to account for the effectiveness of potassium permanganate as an odor-controlline substance in cattle feed vards. Several stereochemical principles were encountered in the polymerization of ethylene and isoprene.
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Hypothesis Reconstruction A more soohisticated assignment challenged the students to reconstru& hypotheses which may ha; been explored somewhere along the pathway between a chemist's original idea and the ultimate production of a product that solved a practical problem. Responses ranged from expressing in the form of an hypothesis what may have gone on in Charles Goodyear's mind when he supposedly spilled rubber on a hot surface to the discoverv that dve molecules can be "affected' by being close to silve;particl& that are exposed to light. ~~
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Discussion of Effect of New Products on Society Another assignment invited the students to discuss how s newly distributed product affected life styles. A suggested approach to this obviously sociologicallyoriented assignment involved comoarisons of solutions to a problem both befon and after launching the new product. An offshoot from the original assignment invited the students to "brainstorm" ar everyday problem and come up with the specifications for nem products which would yield better solutions than those currentlv available. This offshoot had the advantage of puttins the ball back in their court when students ove
