Education Chemistry of consumer goods taught at Miami In an unusual chemistry course at the University of Miami, students learn why fillers are put in detergents, what's so good about polyunsaturated fats, and that there are apt to be more calories in a glass of skim milk than in the equivalent amount of beer. The course, called Consumer Science, was developed by Dr. Carl H. Snyder, an organic chemistry professor at the university, under a grant from the National Science Foundation. In its first three semesters the course has attracted about 150 students. Their backgrounds range from entering freshmen who have never had high school chemistry to senior chemistry majors and even a few postgraduates. The course is intended to bridge the gap between the world of the chemist in the laboratory and the life of an ordinary consumer. Snyder says it is proving valuable, in different ways, to both students who hope to be scientists and to those who plan never to see the inside of a laboratory. "The chemistry majors come to understand that the properties they have studied in their other classes—like surface tension and hydrogénation—actually work in real commodities," Snyder explains. "And the nonmajors learn that the stuff in consumer products has a scientific rationale." "If there's one concept we are trying to teach," he continues, "it is that everything we consume is a chemical, not just the pollutant or the contaminant that may be harmful to us. We want to pull the students away from a fear of the word chemical." To do this, the course takes a close look at the chemicals that go into several consumer products and examines why they are there. In a unit on detergents, for instance, students learn that a box of detergent is a box of chemicals, each included for a specific reason. They study surface tension and how, chemically, a detergent breaks this down; how molecules like alkylbenzene sulfonate function as detergents; the difference between soaps and detergents; and the purposes behind adding fillers, whiteners, and other ingredients. Another unit focuses on fats and oils in the diet. After explaining how fats are chemically related to detergents, Snyder shows the students what the chemical process of hydrogénation involves. From here they explore the differences in the amount of hydrogénation found in vegetable oils and animal fats and see that hydrogénation makes vegetable oils more like animal fats. Other topics include consumer chemicals in the environment, nonprescription medicines, and interpretation of consumer product labels. The course is not strictly chemical,
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The role of chemicals in many common products is stressed in new course however. It branches out into the nonscientific aspects of consumerism, such as the value of comparison shopping. In one class project, for example, students are asked to shop for the best buy on a large consumer item such as a television set and on a small one such as a tube of toothpaste. In each case they are to add the cost of their shopping time to the cost of the product. The idea is to determine how much comparison shopping is economical. In addition to Snyder, the course is taught by a number of guest speakers. These have included the consumer advocate and director of the Department of Environmental Resource Management, Dade County, Florida, a former consultant on food additives to the World Health Organization, and a consumer affairs officer with the Food & Drug Administration. The course has been offered so far as a one-semester, one-credit elective. Beginning in the fall, however, it will expand to a two-semester course. Each semester can be taken independently and carries one credit. One course will deal with ingestible consumer goods and the other with noningestible ones. Snyder says by far the most common criticism students have had of the course so far is that there has not been enough time in one semester to cover all of the material. About 45 or 50 students take the course each semester. Although their range is very broad, Snyder says, most of them are people he has seen around the chemistry building before. In fact he is concerned that the course is not reaching many of the nonscientists he had hoped to attract. One way he makes students more aware of the course is by writing a weekly column in the student newspaper. The column, called Consumer Chemistry, answers questions about the chemicals that are in consumer products and why they are there. D
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