Chemical Education Today edited by
Norbert J. Pienta Department of Chemistry University of Iowa Iowa City, IA 52242-1294
To Roosevelt Island (and Back) The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased and not impaired in value.
Theodore Roosevelt, 1910 (1). Students [should] understand how sustainable solutions to societal issues are those that meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
NSTA (2). It was a rare moment. I was in Wasington, DC, my meeting at the American Chemical Society was unexpectedly canceled, and I had the day to myself. “What to do?” I asked our hotel concierge, indicating that an out-of-the-way spot to hike was first on my list. “Roosevelt Island” was his response, with an added warning that I might end up with wet feet. On the Trail As I quickly learned, Theodore Roosevelt Island is a national memorial and wilderness preserve of about 90 wooded acres with dirt and boardwalk trails (1). The island sits in the Potomac River. Although you can see it from the Kennedy Center, access is on the Virginia side of the river via a footbridge (Figure 1). On that cool November day, I crossed the footbridge and bore left to take the loop trail. As I walked, I reflected on why I had come to DC. One reason was to give a luncheon talk at the National Science Foundation climate change education roundtable on my 15 years of teaching climate change to chemistry students (3). The other was to work on a national project aimed at transforming undergraduate science and math education to get a better match between our curriculum and our planet (4). As the concierge had warned me, indeed the trail was wet underfoot. The locals must have known this, as few were out walking. But I did encounter three children on the trail, one seemingly alone, another with her dad, and another with a whole family. Each child had something to teach me. Girl with Pigtails About a mile into the loop trail, a side trail branches off to “The Swamp”. A sign offers hikers information about its waterlogged soil, crayfish, and the raccoons that eat the crayfish. As I stepped onto this side trail, I was met by a girl coming back up it. “There's really nothing out there, you know”, she pertly informed me. Her demeanor seemed to indicate that only a foolish adult would not heed her words and visit such a swamp. With these words, she immediately sped away, pigtails bouncing. The feeling she left me with was all too familiar. Now and then, I have felt the same way in other “conversations”. I still remember when one of my colleagues informed me “I really don't
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Figure 1. Footbridge to Roosevelt Island. Photograph by author.
know why you teach so much nuclear chemistry. I find it boring.” As with the girl with pigtails, this was the end of a conversation, not the start of one. Clearly, only a foolish person would choose to teach this topic. I have had the same feeling when others intimate that teaching the chemistry of climate change in the chemistry curriculum is not a good use of class time. Truth be told, the girl was right. I went to see the swamp and really there was little to look at. My colleague also may have been right, particularly if he envisioned teaching nuclear chemistry as a string of alpha decays, beta decays, and half-life calculations. Indeed, from that perspective, nuclear chemistry is pretty boring. To appreciate the swamp and really get into all-thingsswampy, you need to see more than brown water and dead plants. Similarly, to get into chemistry, you need to see more than chapter titles such as acids and bases, thermodynamics, and nuclear chemistry. Exciting and engaging topics? Perhaps to some students. But to others, the chapters in a general chemistry text appear about as exciting as the brown landscape of a swamp on a November afternoon. What's the alternative? Check out the International Year of Chemistry Web site (5). The outline for a new general chemistry textbook is in the challenges that it lists: clean air, safe water, healthy food, safe drugs, eco-friendly products, and sustainable energy. Girl with Pink Backpack After my side excursion to The Swamp, I continued along the shoreline loop trail. Moments later, I came across another girl, somewhat older than the first. Hands in a puddle, she was
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r 2010 American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc. pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc Vol. 88 No. 2 February 2011 10.1021/ed101139j Published on Web 12/13/2010
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trying to extract something from the wet ground. Her dad came over to assist her. “Here, let me help you” he said, as he lifted out a fist-sized rock. Even though it was dripping wet and muddy, I could see that the rock was indeed beautiful. As I watched, the girl safely deposited it in her pink backpack. It was all I could do not to make a citizen's arrest! Holding my vigilante tendencies in check, I nonetheless fumed over the theft of the rock. What was the daughter learning? Even in the best outdoor classroom, her dad was screwing things up! As I further reflected on the incident, I recalled a similar one in my own life. As a girl, I visited the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde, Colorado. During the visit, my Dad had reached up inside and extracted a piece of mortar for me. I kept it for years, treasuring it. Only when I saw the girl with the backpack did it dawn on me that he should not have taken it. Back in the 1950s, though, the park creed of “take nothing with you and leave nothing behind” had not permeated our thinking. What have we been doing in our introductory chemistry courses that today we realize is no longer appropriate (if it ever was)? Take content, for example. The idea that “my students need to master this content” is no longer the prime directive. Rather, other key outcomes such as integrating what is learned, applying what is learned, and taking personal and social responsibility for using it now accompany the mastery of content. The idea that what we learn comes with a responsibility to use it is not new. But until the rocks get taken out of our collective backpacks (helping to preserve and restore the world in which we live), this idea of responsibility may be all too new to some.
This task is not only for the 2011 International Year of Chemistry, but also for each and every year we are graced with students. Time is neither on our side nor that of our students. There is a swamp that a child cannot find anything interesting in. There is a rock in a backpack where it does not belong. And at least one kid is yelling. We all need to find our voices and yell as well. We need to cry out about the need for a 21st-century chemistry curriculum to match a 21st-century planet. We need professionals, citizens, parents, and voters who know how chemistry can contribute to “clean air, safe water, healthy food, dependable medicine, dependable materials, eco-friendly products, and sustainable energy”, to quote the IYC Web site (5). In short, our students need to learn chemistry in the context of our planet. I have some ideas. I'll bet you do too. Let's pool our knowledge so we all can act. Catherine H. Middlecamp
Literature Cited
To Roosevelt Island... and Back
1. Roosevelt, T. The New Nationalism; The Outlook Company: New York, 1910. This quote is inscribed on a stone tablet at the memorial on Roosevelt Island; http://www.theodoreroosevelt.org/modern/ trisland.htm (accessed Dec 2010). Trail map of Theodore Roosevelt Island National Memorial is also available online: http://www.nps. gov/this/upload/TRI%20Trail%20system.pdf (accessed Dec 2010). 2. National Science Teachers Association Position Statement: Teaching Science and Technology in the Context of Societal and Personal Issues. http://www.nsta.org/about/positions/societalpersonalissues. aspx (accessed Dec 2010). 3. “Chapter 3: The Chemistry of Global Warming” has been in every edition of Chemistry in Context, a project of the American Chemical Society. I teach a general chemistry course at the University of Wisconsin-Madison using the current edition: Chemistry in Context: Applying Chemistry to Society, Middlecamp, C. H., Keller, S. W., Anderson, K. L., Bentley, A., Cann, M., Ellis, J., Eds.; McGraw-Hill Higher Education: Boston, MA, 2012. 4. Mobilizing STEM Education for a Sustainable Future. http:// mobilizingstem.wceruw.org/ (accessed Dec 2010). 5. The International Year of Chemistry Web site home page. http:// www.chemistry2011.org/ (accessed Dec 2010).
The trail I was following eventually brought me back to my starting point, the footbridge. Practically speaking, this bridge was my way home. But more metaphorically speaking, crossing a bridge is a way to take reflections and transform them into actions. Indeed, with knowledge comes the responsibility to act on it: for our students, for our communities, and for our planet.
Catherine H. Middlecamp has a joint appointment in chemistry and in the integrated liberal studies program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706. She is the editor-in-chief of the seventh and eighth editions of Chemistry in Context, a project of the American Chemical Society; chmiddle@ wisc.edu.
Yelling Toddler There is nothing unusual about a kid screaming. The one in the middle of the trail had a great set of lungs. What was unusual in this particular case was that the parents were trying to listen to what the child was saying. In spite of the yelling, the toddler seemed to be attempting to convey a message. I did not think much about this particular kid until I related the story later to one of the colleagues at my meeting. He retorted, “The kid ought to be screaming. We all ought to be screaming! The planet would scream, too, if it could.” A retired university president, this colleague went on to express his amazement that so many people were silent about the issues we face today on our planet. He noted that our introductory undergraduate science and math courses were among the most silent.
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