Chemical Education Today edited by
Erica K. Jacobsen Editor, JCE Secondary School Chemistry
Organic Chemistry in the High School Curriculum
Associate Editor, JCE Secondary School Chemistry
Laura E. Slocum and Erica K. Jacobsen
Each of us has our favorite topics within the chemistry curriculum. Frequently we teach these topics with more enthusiasm and often look for new ideas related to these topics to include in our classroom. Perhaps most obvious of all, to our colleagues at least, we gravitate toward talks that focus on our favorite topics and tend to center our own conference presentations around these topics as well. One of my passions is organic chemistry, and when I first started attending conferences, two years into my teaching career, I would usually go to at least a few of the organic talks because I wanted to stay in touch with the field. That early in my teaching career, I never considered teaching organic chemistry at the high school level, primarily because I did not know any school that was offering it at that level. Then, a couple of years later, another high school teacher asked me this question, “I am teaching an Introduction to Organic Chemistry next year. What do you think of this?” Honestly, I thought that teacher was crazy to take on a course like this with high school students. Four years later, I was given the opportunity to become one of these teachers myself and have been for the past eight years, and I love it! The school where I teach is a college-preparatory school, and many of our students are interested in preprofessional majors in college. Organic chemistry is often one of the most challenging courses for preprofessional majors, and I see the opportunity to have an introductory organic chemistry course at the high school level as being a huge plus for them when they get to college. For example, students in my organic course learn nomenclature, basic chemical reactions, and infrared (IR) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. Not only do I teach an Introduction to Organic Chemistry course, I also teach an Introduction to Biochemistry course. The number of high schools that are adding these types of courses to their science curriculums appears to be on the rise based on what I am hearing from colleagues at conferences and via e-mail. Teaching these two courses (Introduction to Organic Chemistry in the fall and Introduction to Biochemistry in the spring) is my favorite part of the school year. Why? Unlike the first-year general chemistry course that has a set of national and state standards that have to be followed, and Advanced Placement (AP) Chemistry that has a set curriculum too, these two courses are truly mine. I get to cover in the curriculum and laboratory what I want to include. If the students in a particular course have a special interest, I can guide my topics to align with their interests or even add or delete a topic. Presently, I only teach these courses every other year, alternating with AP Chemistry, because of the smaller size of my school. I am not aware of any research on the impact these type of courses have on student performance once the students attend college, but many of my students have returned and expressed great thanks for having had introductory courses like these in high school, especially the preprofessional students. 348
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In particular, they felt it gave them a “head-start” in organic chemistry. An Indiana colleague talked about his organic course at the Hoosier Association of Science Teachers, Inc. (HASTI) conference in February 2010 (1). He described not only the topics that he covers in his class but also the laboratory experience that he provides for his students. The piece of his presentation that really spoke to me was the stories he shared about the impact this course had on his students. Courses like this open new opportunities for us to try new ideas and teaching styles in our classroom. In this issue of the Journal I read about several new teaching ideas, specifically linked to teaching organic and biochemistry, that I found especially appealing. Davis-McGibony addresses the idea of using the jigsaw technique to facilitate student learning in regard to protein sequencing (DOI: 10.1021/ed8001144). I had never heard of the jigsaw technique and my students struggle with protein sequencing in biochemistry, so this article gave me a wonderful idea to try in about six weeks when I get to proteins. Though I am done teaching organic for this year, I have added several articles from this issue to my organic chemistry course folder for next time. One is Follows's article (DOI: 10.1021/ ed800127w), with an Internet source he shares that contains a molecular puzzle similar to a word search (Figure 1) and with a description of how teachers can create these for use in their classroom with organic molecules. Another article is Angelin and Ramstrom's game, Where's Ester? (DOI: 10.1021/ed800129r). Both of these articles have some wonderful, nontraditional styles of homework and molecular structure re-enforcement that I like to use in my classroom. Two Upcoming BCCE Symposia This summer, the 21st BCCE conference will be held at the University of North Texas from August 1-5 (2). Among the many symposia of interest to high school teachers, I'd like to highlight two that I am looking forward to. The first is a symposium that was started by Esther Freeman, Survivor Skills for 1st to 5th Year Chemistry Teachers, at the 19th BCCE. The symposium is designed to allow experienced teachers to offer themselves as role models for novice teachers and other educators seeking to improve and fine-tune their classroom instruction and management skills. The second symposium is Views from the Classrooms of Conant and Regional Award Winners. In this symposium, attendees will have the chance to meet and benefit from award-winning teachers, as well as find out more about how to nominate a teacher for one of these awards and how each award selection process works. As you make your own summer plans, be sure to put the 21st BCCE on your calendar. All of us at the Journal are really looking forward to seeing you there.
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Vol. 87 No. 4 April 2010 pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc r 2010 American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc. 10.1021/ed800146x Published on Web 03/09/2010
Chemical Education Today • The Especially for High School Teachers columns published so far in 2010 have included information that may look a little cryptic: digital object identifier numbers, also called DOI references. For example, the articles that Laura mentions above each have a DOI number listed after it, replacing the page number references you used to see. It is a unique identifier connected to the article and is a way to manage content. You can use it to easily find articles on the Web site at http://pubs.acs. org/journal/jceda8 (accessed Feb 2010) through a special DOI search (see the DOI tab in the yellow search box on JCE's home page). • JCE's High School Chemed Learning Information Center (CLIC), the portion of our Web site designed especially for high school chemistry teachers, is currently undergoing updates. As I write this, you can find CLIC in two places, both in its original form, http://www.jce.divched.org/hs/ (accessed Feb 2010), and at least partially migrated to its new location and platform at http://pubs.acs.org/page/jceda8/clic/index.html (accessed Feb 2010). I look forward to the improvements that are underway as staff work toward making it an even more useful tool for busy teachers. • I've saved the best (in my opinion) for last. 2010 subscription rates have been released. All high school teachers are eligible for the new, reduced rate of $25 a year. This includes print issues mailed monthly along with full online access to both the JCE Web site content and the special CLIC site. As before, the Web site still offers access to past JCE issues since its beginning in 1924. You do not need to be a member of the American Chemical Society or the Division of Chemical Education to receive this great deal. Simply contact ACS Publications using the contact information listed at http://pubs.acs.org/page/jceda8/subscribe.html (accessed Feb 2010).
Figure 1. “Molecular search” puzzle for organic molecules.
Erica's Take on the Issue With the move to copublication of the Journal of Chemical Education ( JCE), various nuts and bolts items that you may have become used to in the past are receiving updates. These include items such as how to submit manuscripts, the citation of articles, JCE's Web site, and subscription rates. Information about these updates appears regularly in the print Journal and on the Web, but this “nuts and bolts” information bears repeating.
• ACS Paragon Plus, JCE's new online submission system, is open for business and ready to receive your manuscript at https:// acs.manuscriptcentral.com:443/acs (accessed Feb 2010). The platform requires a user ID and password; if you have previously authored or reviewed for JCE, you may already be registered in the system. Instructions for this situation as well as for new users are listed at the site. If you are a high school author and have submitted a manuscript using the new system, please send me an email message (
[email protected]) to let me know how it went. Do you have any tips for others as they navigate the system for the first time?
r 2010 American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.
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Secondary School Featured Article 5 Montes-Gonzalez, I.; Cintron-Maldonado, J. A.; PerezMedina, I. E.; Montes-Berríos, V.; Roman-Lopez, S. N. A Sticky Situation: Chewing Gum and Solubility. JCE Classroom Activity #105. J. Chem. Educ. 2010, 87, DOI: 10.1021/ed800135j. Literature Cited 1. Hoosier Association of Science Teachers, Inc. 40th Annual Conference. http://www.hasti.org/2010conference.html (accessed Feb 2010). 2. 21st Biennial Conference on Chemical Education. http://www. bcce2010.org/ (accessed Feb 2010).
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