Chemistry for Everyone
Stories and Anecdotes in the Chemistry Classroom Deborah A. Folino Community College of Allegheny County, South Campus, West Mifflin, PA 15122;
[email protected] The Appeal of Stories and Anecdotes As a child, I enjoyed the stories my mother read at bedtime. Today, as much as ever, I still enjoy listening to others tell tales. So it is for many of us. Bringing stories into the science classroom is a valuable way to encourage learning. It requires nothing of the student but to listen. While many science students are not going to be enthusiastic about learning science, many will give you their ears for an entertaining story. From very early times, people have been telling stories and passing knowledge from one generation to another. Storytelling is still an appealing way to transmit information. It is a vehicle by which you can provide the who, what, where, when, and how of science. I can very well recall the “traditional” chemistry lecture. Mostly, it consists of a presentation of facts, formulas, and problem solving. Students write diligently in their notebooks while trying to comprehend the essence of a sometimes rather abstract subject. Contrast a classroom where discussion on the discovery of a chemistry point is limited to what is being written on the board to one where students are listening to the tale of an eccentric misanthrope. This individual was a brilliant scientist, able to do his research because he inherited great wealth. Though he was a millionaire at the time of his death, you would never have guessed it. He was a man who would wear the same black suit until it wore out and then purchase another one just like it, repeating the process. This man of few words was very shy except when involved in scientific conversation. He seemed almost afraid of women and the maids in his house were instructed to stay out of his sight or be dismissed. He even had a pair of back stairs built in his house to avoid contact with them (1). As you may have guessed, I am speaking about Henry Cavendish, but in the student’s mind, I am painting a scenario that will become the stage for the delivery of the same information being presented in the first classroom. Would you sit in on stories such as this? Some may argue that lecture and stories meet different goals. Storyteller Syd Lieberman suggests that it is the story that provides the nail on which to hang facts. Students remember facts when they are tied to a story. Most lectures focus on facts. Stories complement the lecture (2). By offering the extra something of a story, you can inspire students to want the substance in the content (3). Stories about the lives of scientists can be used to enhance students’ understanding of the role of particular scientists, and it can also help illustrate how scientific developments evolved. Certainly it is not a new idea that historical aspects of science be included in the science curriculum. It is essential for students to examine the past in order to understand the steps leading to the present. The National Science Education Standards recommends the “use of history in school science programs to clarify different aspects of scientific inquiry, the human aspects of science, and the role that science has played in the development of various cultures” (4).
A good story will stay alive in the mind of your students long after your class is over. Its memory will take hold in their imagination and have more meaning than just isolated facts and lists of events (5). Stories enrich your science curriculum by bringing voices from the past into the present. They not only illustrate the scientists’ ideas, but their sorrows, their wondering, their motives, mysteries, and even madness. Stories are able to show the humanness of someone’s actions, a window into someone’s character, the person behind the deed (6 ). Students need to understand that scientists are not perfect human beings. Scientists are not exempt from the human weaknesses that plague us all. Sometimes getting it wrong is the way that science advances. One wrong idea gives way to a better, yet maybe still wrong idea, until the shortcomings are eventually worked out. When telling stories about scientists, you provide your students with possible role models. It is through hard work, sacrifice, mistakes, and serendipity that many scientists achieve success, not intellect alone. When students examine the human side of scientists, they begin to realize that science is something that anyone can do. Stories can provide an enjoyable way for all students to get a grasp on current scientific principles (7). In his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, the American philosopher Thomas Kuhn states that science and technology are social activities and not the domain of solitary, eccentric practitioners. Science cannot be undertaken in isolation, and therefore we cannot disregard its history. In general, science is taught beginning with the simple and migrating to the more complex. However, in order to understand the way in which science has evolved and moved forward, one must understand the trials and tribulations of its past (8). When one examines the development of and circumstances surrounding a scientific theory it helps students to better understand its current form. History of Chemistry I have successfully introduced in story format the history of the periodic table. During the course of researching my topic I learned things relating to the development of the periodic table that I never encountered in my traditional chemistry classes. I became more aware of the nature of the times when the table was developed even though consciously I had been aware of the year. I never made the connection that the developments discussed at the Chemical Conference meeting at Karlsruhe in 1860 were taking place around the same time the United States was heading toward a civil war. It never occurred to me to think that American scientists were somewhat isolated from their European counterparts owing to the extent of time needed for correspondence and travel. American scientists were excluded from the conference in Karlsruhe for those very reasons. I found that understanding the periodic table’s evolution brought more meaning to its significance and credit to its discovery than just learning about the table alone. The students seemed to enjoy hearing about
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Chemistry for Everyone
Johann Döbereiner’s early attempt to organize elements in triads according to atomic weight and similarity of chemical properties. They sympathized with John Newlands over the ridicule he experienced at the Chemical Congress at Karlsruhe when he presented his law of octaves. The students were surprised at the discovery made simultaneously by Lothar Meyer and Dmitri Mendelev and how both men eventually acknowledged the other’s work. They examined with interest the various tables preceding the present periodic table and better understood that a great deal of effort was invested in its development. Examples of Stories I first used stories in the classroom about ten years ago. I was teaching an introductory chemistry class and was looking for a way to bring more to the classroom than just what was written in the text. I wanted to arouse my students’ interest and at the same time connect unfamiliar chemical terms to something that the students might remember. That is when I discovered the power of a story. Early in the course the students had to memorize the names and symbols of the most common elements. Some symbols are very easy to associate with the name of the element, being the first one or two letters of the element’s name. Some though, are not so obvious. While there is a story behind the discovery of every element, I selected a few that I found most interesting. To explain why lead’s symbol is Pb, I tell them that it originated from old Latin word plumbum. In Roman times, a person who worked with lead pipes was called a plumber—a word we still use today. Likewise, the symbol for copper, Cu, has its origin in old Latin. It is believed that copper was once mined on the island of Cyprus and it was originally called cyprium. Over time it became called cuprium and hence copper’s symbol is Cu. I was quite surprised as I looked around the room and found that every student was listening intently. It was later rewarding to hear my students say after the first exam that those short stories about the elements served as memory aids in remembering the symbols.
Unfortunate Guinea Pigs One of my favorite stories used in the above-mentioned class is entitled “Unfortunate Guinea Pigs”. This is a story about the origin of antimony, which is also known as stibium. I begin by having the students locate Sb on the periodic table and tell them its symbol is for stibnite, the ore from which the element was discovered. How then, I ask, is it that we call it antimony? I then go to my story: “It begins in a Benedictine monastery in France, with a monk named Basilius Valentinus. Basil Valentine for short. Basil had been experimenting with stibium ore and accidentally threw the results of his old experiments into the slop that was used to feed the pigs at the monastery. After a few days, Basil noticed that the pigs became very sick and lost weight. However, they soon got better and developed a tremendous appetite and grew into large, fat hogs. Noticing that many of the monks in the monastery were a little on the slim side, Basil Valentine decided that a little stibium in their food might produce the same effect, allowing them to put on a little weight. Following through with his plan, he carefully observed the monks. Just as had happened with the pigs, the monks became sick and began to lose weight. But unlike the 1616
pigs, the monks all died. Basil Valentine felt bad that his experiment had failed. So, he set out on a campaign to let all of France know the results of his ill-fated experiment. He traveled throughout France declaring that stibium was not good for monks, or anti (“not good for”) moine (“monks”). Hence we get the word antimony” (9). Once students know the story, it becomes clear why the symbol is Sb and not A.
Lives of Scientists Anecdotes about the lives of scientists can provide light spots in what students may find mundane topics. When teaching about temperature scales I always talk about William Thomson, later known as Baron Kelvin of Largs or Lord Kelvin. He was a child prodigy who at the age of 17 attended Cambridge University. Upon graduation he went to Paris for postgraduate study. Later, he became a professor of natural philosophy, which is just an old-fashioned name for science. He was quite loved by his students and was known to lecture in a dramatic and eccentric fashion. There are many stories about him and his students. One says that because of an engagement elsewhere, Professor Thomson once put a note on the lecture hall door stating, “Professor Thomson will not meet his classes today.” His students, upon seeing the note, decided to play a trick on him and erased the “c” from classes. The students expected that they would find a suitable note about the response. To their surprise, Thomson had altered the message one more time. He removed the “l” from lasses and it read, “Professor Thomson will not meet his asses today” (1). While Thomson (Lord Kelvin) is most noted for determining absolute zero and the absolute temperature scale otherwise known as the Kelvin scale, students who hear this amusing anecdote also remember he was a man with a sense of humor. Blunders and Ethics Blunders in science make for interesting stories as well. Try telling your students about the discovery of oxygen. The statement “Oxygen was discovered by an English chemist named Joseph Priestley” can be found in all elementary chemistry books. While Joseph Priestley was an outstanding scientist with many contributions to chemistry, he never realized the significance of his most important discovery. Priestley lived near a brewery and became interested in the gases that were given off during the brewing process. The gas now known as carbon dioxide fascinated him so much that he collected a supply of it for experimentation. He found that under pressure, the gas would readily dissolve in water. This was actually the beginning of the soda, or carbonated beverages industry. Throughout his life, Priestley subscribed to the phlogiston theory of combustion. Eventually, by his own efforts he refuted the theory, but never abandoned it. The phlogiston theory, in essence, states that anything that could burn or support combustion contained a special substance called phlogiston that is ejected during burning and released to the atmosphere. Priestley conducted several experiments heating metallic oxides with a large magnifying glass to focus the sun’s rays in order to observe the properties of phlogiston. In 1772, he discovered that plants give off a gas that was necessary to support animal life. Two years later he produced samples of the same gas by heating red oxides of
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Chemistry for Everyone
mercury and lead. He noted that when he breathed the harmless gas, it produced a feeling of lightness in his chest. Furthermore, this gas could keep a mouse conscious twice as long as ordinary air when the two gases (and a mouse) were confined in equal-volume containers. Priestley thought that he had discovered a new kind of air, which he called dephlogisticated air. In reality, he had discovered oxygen. Another chemist, Karl Wilhelm Scheele, discovered a colorless and odorless gas. He noticed that when small animals were kept in an atmosphere of this gas they became frisky. He also found that a glowing splint would burst into flame when in contact with the gas. Scheele called the gas ‘fire air’, and was the first to show that air consists of two gases, one that supports combustion and one that does not. He immediately wrote a book that described his experiments but the book was not published until 1777. By then, Priestley’s work was well known. In 1774, Priestley had visited the great scientist Antoine Laurent Lavoisier and told him about his experiments. Lavoisier immediately repeated Priestley’s work and confirmed his findings. Lavoisier realized the significance of Priestley’s discovery and saw that the new gas is the essential ingredient of air. Lavoisier called it oxygen, which is Greek for ‘acid maker’. Lavoisier wrongly believed that all acids contain this newly discovered gas. He did, however, as did Scheele, show that air contains two gases, one that supports combustion (oxygen) and one that does not (nitrogen). Lavoisier realized the importance of this discovery and wanted to go down in history as the discoverer of this new element. He claimed the discovery as his own and did not give any credit to the work of Priestley. Scheele was actually the first to discover oxygen, but until recently, he had been for the most part ignored and forgotten (7). Students enjoy learning about scientists’ lives. Did you know that after receiving his first Ph.D. from the University of Zurich in 1905, Albert Einstein could not find a teaching job? Did you know that in the year 1845, dinitrogen monoxide, also known as laughing gas, was administered at laughing gas parties and that public demonstrations of such were enthusiastically attended? Did you know that Antoine Lavoisier, known as the father of modern chemistry, was a good friend of Benjamin Franklin and lost his life to the guillotine during the Reign of Terror of 1794? Are You Ready for Stories in Your Classroom? It is a common misconception that there isn’t enough time to make stories a part of your science curriculum. Many stories take only minutes to tell (6 ). When introducing stories into your curriculum, it may be easiest for you to begin by focusing on one single event. Use impressive language and use it in the most dramatic way. Don’t be concerned about your technique in telling the story. Your students will become quite absorbed as your own interest in the subject unfolds. Concentrating on your subject is your chief preparation. Your style will improve with time (5). General Guidelines Research your story. You can extend your search to littlediscussed areas or topics in chemical education: for example,
minorities, gender issues, world concerns, exceptional children. There are many excellent Web sites that offer this kind of information. Students can explore African Americans in the Sciences at http://www.Princeton.edu/~mcbrown/display/ faces.html. A look at 4000 years of women in science is available at http://www.Astr.ua.edu/4000WS. An interactive periodic table that gives background information is accessible at http://www.webelements.com. The information on the Web is endless. Also, the Journal of Chemical Education has published several articles with stories of this nature. I have listed a few in the bibliography. You can find many more by searching the JCE online index, http://jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/Journal/ Search/index.html. Bait your audience. Select a story that is appropriate for you and your audience. You want to arouse their curiosity and pique their interest. When you lead into it well, your students will be interested in listening before you even begin. This can be done easily by asking a question, showing a photograph, or even using a prop. Practice your story. Memorize it, but not verbatim. Let it develop each time as you tell it. Try to visualize it as you go along. Become engaging. When presenting the story, try to vary your tone and pitch. Limit your gestures, and use your eyes and facial expressions to enrich the story. Make eye contact with your students. Look at them directly. Go slowly. Don’t rush the story. If you lose your place momentarily, don’t get flustered, you’ll remember. Don’t go overboard. Use body language. Move around as you speak. A little acting out is fine, but don’t distract your audience with too many theatricals (10). Include some quotations. What better way to understand a situation and relate to the main character than to hear their own words. Quotations add realism (11). Conclusion The history of science is full of interesting stories and anecdotes that can transform an ordinary lesson into a memorable one. Students are often surprised to find that what some scientists believed 100 years ago was later found to be totally wrong. Many times they think that science is beyond reproach and whatever is taught as a fact will remain a fact indefinitely. Certainly that is misleading! Teachers who want to incorporate the whole-curriculum approach might consider introducing a story or anecdote to encourage students to delve deeper into a subject or to pursue one of their own interest. Having students present a story of their own finding to the class makes for a very enjoyable assignment. By integrating stories and anecdotes into your classroom, you can make chemistry more interesting and provide your students with a broader education in science. Literature Cited 1. Robacker, R. History of Chemistry Caricature Book; Flinn Scientific: Batavia, IL, 1998; pp 40–41, 121. 2. Collins, R.; Cooper, P. The Power of Story; Allyn and Bacon: Needham Heights, MA, 1997; p 5. 3. Heesman, M. Sci. Teach. 1999, 66 (1), 77. 4. Traver, R. Sci. Teach. 1998, 65 (1), 42.
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Chemistry for Everyone 5. Shedlock, M. The Art of the Storyteller; Dover: New York, 1951; pp 26, 152–155. 6. MacDonald, M. The Storyteller’s Start-up Book; August House: Little Rock, AR, 1993; p 43. 7. Youngson, R. Scientific Blunders; Carroll and Graf: New York, 1998; pp xxii, 155–158. 8. Cornish, T. New Sci. 1995, 148 (2007), 53. 9. Choppin, G.; Summerlin, L. Chemistry; Silver Burdett: Morristown, NJ, 1982; pp 467–468. 10. Granstrom, C. Country J. 1997, 24 (6), 24–28. 11. Herreid, C. J. Coll. Sci. Teach. 1998, 27 (3), 163.
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Recommended Journal of Chemical Education Articles Baldwin, W. H. The Story of Nickel I. How “Old Nick’s” Gnomes Were Outwitted; J. Chem. Educ. 1931, 8, 1954. Hill, W. D. Mythology and Elemental Etymology: The Names of 92 through 94; J. Chem. Educ. 1988, 65, 652. Ringnes, V. Origin of the Names of Chemical Elements; J. Chem. Educ. 1989 66 731. Rosenfeld, L. Discovery and Early Uses of Iodine; J. Chem. Educ. 2000, 77, 984. Thoman, V. Swedish Chemists and Discovery of the Elements; J. Chem. Educ. 1996, 73, 937.
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