Chemical Education Today
Meeting Report
Reports from Abroad by Morton Z. Hoffman
German Chemical Education Meeting It was clear that chemical education is creatively alive in Germany from the enthusiasm of the 300 participants at the 22nd meeting of the Division of Chemical Education (Fachgruppe Chemieunterricht) of the German Chemical Society (Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker), held September 8– 10, 2005, at Friedrich-Schiller University, Jena, Germany. Attendees represented the full spectrum of the German educational system. The program consisted of oral and poster presentations on content, pedagogy, and hands-on exercises for students, invited plenary lectures, and a virtuosic multimedia show of microscale demonstrations. Germany has strong networks among university faculty and high school teachers that are generating materials for use in the classroom and laboratory. These connections have succeeded in increasing student interest in chemistry. Increasingly, the university chemistry departments are establishing chemical education sections that are fully equivalent to the more conventional disciplinary “silos” with regard to importance and influence. IUPAC Congress and General Assembly The 40th International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) World Chemistry Congress with the theme of Innovation in Chemistry and the 43rd IUPAC General Assembly were held concurrently at the Beijing International Convention Center, August 14–19, 2005. The Congress is a general scientific meeting not unlike an ACS meeting, while the General Assembly is the occasion for meetings of the governing bodies and committees of IUPAC such as the Committee on Chemistry Education (CCE).
World Chemistry Congress The Congress (http://www.iupac-congress05.org.cn/; accessed Nov 2005) attracted approximately 2000 attendees from around the world, with large representations from China and other Asian countries. Invited and contributed oral and poster presentations were made in eight topical groups: environmental and green chemistry; life sciences chemistry; materials chemistry; computational chemistry; physical and biophysical chemistry; analytical chemistry; chemical education; industrial chemistry. Within chemical education, invited talks were given by Viktor Obendrauf (University of Graz, Austria), Mary Kirchhoff (ACS), Warren Beasley (University of Queensland, Australia), Choon Do (Sunchon National University, Korea), Jens Leker (University of Münster, Germany), Masato Ito (Soka University, Japan), Peter Atkins (Oxford University, UK), and Zhilin Wang (Nangjing University, China). Stephen Heller (NIST), David Malik (IUPUI), and Morton Hoffman (Boston University) gave contributed talks in chemical education. www.JCE.DivCHED.org
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The next IUPAC Congress and General Assembly will be held early in August 2007 in Torino, Italy. If you wish to plan ahead, Glasgow, Scotland, will be the venue of the Congress and General Assembly in 2009.
Committee on Chemistry Education (CCE) The meeting of CCE (http://www.iupac.org/standing/ cce.html; accessed Nov 2005), chaired by Peter Atkins, began with members of the committee describing the issues in chemical education that confront their countries. In Europe, the focus is on the implementation of the “Bologna Process”, in which all undergraduate university programs will follow a very similar pattern that leads to a uniformly recognized EuroBachelor; current concerns are the quality of the curricula, broadening the diversity of students, and future employability. Russia and the other countries of the former Soviet Union are struggling to complete the reforms that were begun over the past 15 years; the result is that many old wheels have been reinvented. Asian countries are working to adjust their educational systems to reflect their newly developed economic opportunities. Questions have been raised within the provinces in Canada about the licensing of chemists as professionals in the same way as is done for engineers. Sadly, chemical education in the developing countries is just barely hanging on. My report on the state of chemical education in the U.S. emphasized the important role of ACS, its committees, technical divisions, and publications in producing materials across the educational spectrum, reaching out to high school teachers, encouraging research in educational practices and teaching and learning, and working to reflect in curricular content and pedagogical approaches the changes that are taking place within chemistry and the molecular sciences. An interesting issue that could have wide ramifications in the publishing world is the recent directive from the Chinese Ministry of Education that requires their many colleges and universities to teach science and mathematics in English within a very short time—as little as three years for the most prominent institutions. The subcommittee on Chemistry for Development reported on work in India developing Web-based interactive quizzes for high school chemistry students in several Indian languages to motivate them toward further studies in chemistry. The “Flying Chemist Program” seeks to provide the expertise needed to strengthen chemistry education on the primary, secondary, and tertiary levels through visits by chemists to establish partnerships among schools, industries, and governments. One of main projects of CCE continues to be the development of microscale chemistry for Indian high schools in order to implement low-cost, hands-on experiences. The subcommittee on the Public Understanding of Chemistry issued a report on the importance of IUPAC toward the enhancement of the public appreciation of chemis-
Vol. 83 No. 1 January 2006
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Chemical Education Today
Meeting Report try, concluding that chemistry activities aimed at supporting teachers and students within the formal school system are often more effective than those aimed at the general public. The targeted public should be chemists and educators who would understand and work with a variety of other publics. Thus IUPAC would focus on activities such as helping scientists identify and understand their publics, influencing international organizations, supporting science education systems (particularly in countries in transition), communicating relevant findings from IUPAC projects and activities, and supporting national chemical societies (particularly in countries in transition). The subcommittee also reported on the Young Ambassadors for Chemistry initiative to enhance the public understanding of chemistry through teacher and school audiences in target locations within regions in transition. Volume 6, Number 1, the latest issue of Chemical Education International (http://www.iupac.org/publications/cei/ index.html; accessed Nov 2005), the online newsletter of
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CCE, contains the text of the plenary and keynote papers from the 18th International Conference on Chemical Education (ICCE) that was held in Istanbul, Turkey, August 3–8, 2004. The 19th ICCE will be held in Seoul, Korea, August 12–17, 2006; (for more information, see http:// www.19icce.org; accessed Nov 2005). CCE elected Peter Mahaffy (King’s University College, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada) as the Committee Chair for the next three years and voiced acclamation for the leadership of Atkins since 2001. The next IUPAC Congress and General Assembly will be held early in August 2007 in Torino, Italy. If you wish to plan ahead, Glasgow, Scotland, will the venue of the Congress and General Assembly in 2009. Morton Z. Hoffman, the 2005 chair of the ACS Division of Chemical Education, is a member of the Chemistry Department, Boston University, 590 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215-2507;
[email protected] Vol. 83 No. 1 January 2006
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