Robert H. Maybury and P. Bandyopadhyay UNESCO Office of Science Teaching Paris, France
UNESCO's Program To Improve Chemistry Teaching
In a sense, a torch that was lighted in the United States is the source of a flame now being passed on to nations throughout the world. We refer to the science curriculum reform activities which, under National Science Foundation aid, have led to truly radical reforms in both content and teaching approach in the sciences in U.S. schools. Spurred mainly by a handful of university research scientists disturbed over the decline of school science teaching by the 19501s, teams of outstanding school teachers and university scientists initiated far-reaching improvements in each of the sciences and in mathematics. The resultadthese reforms are widely known: PSSC physics; BSCS biology in Yellow, Green, and Blue versions; SMSG math; and of course CBA and CHERT Study chemistry. Presented as part of the 6ymposium on International Chemical Educational Activities before the Division of Chemical Education at the 146th Meeting of the American Chemical Society, Philadelphia, Pa., April 1964.
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These new approaches have led to important secondphase consequences-a growing tradition of summer institute attendance among high school teachers in the USA, major introspection among college scientists regarding their performance as teachers, and, most significant in terms of our topic, the spread of the flame of teaching improvement to science teachers of Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Many are contributing to this spread of new ideas in science teaching. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) through its Directorate of Scientific Mairs, organized a number of. conferences, including one a t Greystone, Ireland, in 1960, and first arranged for American leaders of science reform to share their views with European scientists and teachers. British science teachers now engaged in curriculum improvement under major financial assistance from the Nuffield Foundation were undoubtedly stimulated by the OECD conferences. Other European countries have national programs to improve science teaching which reflect directly or
indirectly the An~ericanexperience. I n Sweden the physicists have produced a Swedish adaptation of PSSC physics; and in Rome, Dr. Liberti is leading a group of Italian chemists in writing chemistry materials along CHEM Study lines. We have seen PSSC texts in Japanese and Spanish, and an Indian version is sold widely in India for about eight rupees ($2). Through consultations with NSF and assisted by U.S. AID, India conducted 16 summer institutes in the summer of 1964: four in PSSC physics, four in BSCS biology, four in mathematics, and four in CHEM Study chemistry. Also, 200 copies of the CBA text have been ordered by India. We merely illustrate with random data the wave of interest throughout the world in science teaching reform. UNESCO, the United Nations specialized agency concerned with science and education, is active in helping member countries improve their science teaching, in particular chemistry teaching. Withm the Secretariat of UNESCO in Paris, a small staff of teachers who have had a part in science teaching reform has been set up as the Officeof Science Teaching under Professor Albert V. Baez, formerly of the PSSC staff a t MIT. Our principal responsibility is to give intellectual guidance to the representative activities which characterize our operations. We arrange meetings and conferences, we survey needs, we commission the writing of books and guides, we send "experts" where needed. Because these programs are spread out over more than 100 countries around the world and because our budget is extremely modest, we strive for a large multiplying factor in these programs-that is, our somewhat small-scale participation in international science affairsmust be catalytic in nature. The basic question behmd all our work is: How can UNESCO help teachers to improve chemistry teaching? As one agency engaged in passing along to teachers in the developing countries the new materials on science teaching, UNESCO must find suitable answers to this question. Perhaps our most useful role in the field of chemistry lies in encouraging a wider interchange of original ideas on chemistry teaching. This first of all involves a clearinghouse functionand we are looking for ways to do this on as wide a scale as possible. Examples of outstanding textbooks in chemistry, journals on chemistry teaching, newsletters of chemistry teacher organizations, new teaching aids such as copies of programed instruction books, chemistry teaching films, overhead projector demonstration writeups, etc., are flowing to our officefrom many member states, chiefly of course from the USA, England, France, Japan, and the USSR. To what uses do we put these materials? At any one time about 200 professors of science are teaching as UNESCO experts in teacher training institutes and universities of the newly developing countries. One criterion in selecting these experts is their knowledge of new ideas in science teaching; we share with them, for their use in the field, some of these new materials that come to us. For instance, a t UNESCO we have set up a small center of printed materials, projectors, demonstration equipment, molecular models, and other devices that can be studied by these experts during their briefing period in Paris on their way to the field stations. This clearinghouse function prompted us also to
commission six university chemistry professors in the USA, the USSR, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Czechoslovakia to write informative surveys of university level chemistry teaching in their respective countries. These are being brought together in a book which UNESCO will soon publish. We hope that science educators in the developing countries who plan new chemistry departments will find much useful information in these surveys. The comparison of university teaching practices in chemistry provided by these surveys is also likely to prove valuable to chemists in the six nations surveyed. The Officeof Science Teaching is eager to promote a wide interchange of original ideas in chemistry teaching. International distribution of outstanding papers appearing in national journals of chemical education would upgrade the quality of chemistry teaching in all countries, for it would develop and strengthen a tradition among teachers of reading international literature on chemistry teachmg, similar to the generally accepted tradition among research scientists who enjoy an international literature which is widely read and abstracted. Our dilemma is this: Should UNESCO assist the wider distribution of national journals of chemical education among other countries, or should UNESCO create an international journal of chemical education made up of selected papers from national journals? The problems of language afflict both alternatives; so does the problem of costs. One suggestion made to us is that UNESCO ask the organizations publishing such periodicals as the JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION of the USA and School and Chemistry of the USSR to provide copies a t low cost for teachers in the developing countries. One of the best ways to help teachers improve their teaching is to get a group of teachers working together on creating or adapting some of the new teaching materials--programed instruction, 8mm concept films, overhead projector demonstrations, etc. UNESCO is experimenting with this approach among physics teachers of Latin American countries in the UNESCOIBECC Pilot Project on New Techniques in Physics Teaching, located in Brazil.' A similar Pilot Project on Chemistry Teaching is now being planned for Asia in 196546. In some university or teacher trainimg college yet to be selected, a staff of five or six experts will gather--chemistry professors who have had experience in curriculum reform, programed instruction specialists, film-making specialists (particularly in 8mm concept films), and laboratory design specialists-with a group of 20 college teachers of chemistry from the teacher training colleges and universities of South and Southeast Asian countries. For one or two years this group will apply itself to an examination of the existing chemistry texts, teacher guides, films, and other teachmg aids mentioned earlier, in order to adapt these to Asian use in secondary and early university chemistry courses. We anticipate that these teachers will go beyond mere adaptation of the existing materials, as sound as these may be, and that they will create new
S e e in this Symposium GOMEZ-Isan~z, JOSE NAL, 41, 586 (1964).
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materials which are particularly suited to Asian needs in chemistry teaching. Such a pilot project is urgently needed in Asii. These nations face a long climb to the place they aspire to take among modern industrialized nations. Science teaching that properly prepares their own talented youth is a large factor in this climb--and their government leaders are giving science education top priority. The diaculties are grave: not enough qualified teachers, inadequate schoolrooms and Saboratories, limited supplies of equipment and textbooks. The pilot project must explore new possibilities in teaching chemistry under severe limitations, and must attempt to assess realistically the relative importance of various new aids for the teacher, auto-instructional devices for student use, and new and inexpensive laboratory materials to help the student develop an inquiring mind. For this UNESCO Pilot Project in Chemistry Teaching, we are now searching for chemistry teachers to act as specialists in 196546; we are simultaneously searching in the Asian countries for outstanding science teachers and scientists to give Asian leadership to the project. Some of the Asians chosen may spend a preliinltry six months or so in the USA, USSR, or a European country for advanced training and contacts with leaders in chemical education. The NSF and the Nuffield Chemistry Teaching Project have expressed unofficial but enthusiastic interest in cooperating with the preparatory phases of the Pilot Project in Chemistry. This description of a portion of the UNESCO program in chemistry teaching improvement should be sufficient to convey our sense of urgency and relevancy. The task is large; our staff is small. Two years ago, foreseeing the growth of the program, we approached the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry with a request for a responsible consultative body or
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advisory group to aid our office. The response has been most encouraging. Professor Edward Haenisch, the American representative, has reported in this Symposium the IUPAC action.? I n collaboration with the IUPAC Commission on Chemistry Teaching, the UNESCO office hopes to develop a series of guidelines on chemistry teaching improvement measures that can be useful to teachers and scientists in all countries. UNESCO will contract to the IUPAC Commission the tasks of selecting the writers and of passing final judgment on the content. It is possible that a small working group of chemical education leaders of various countries will be convened to evaluate ideas for the guideline series. The UNESCO budget will support translation and publication costs of the finished documents. In thus collaborating with IUPAC, UNESCO is following the advice of the International Advisory Committee on Research in the Natural Sciences Programme of UNESCO, which met in Ottawa in 1963: that UNESCO should seek to conduct much of its substantive scientific affairs through the relevant international scientific unions. Indeed, the guidance of the IUPAC Commission on Chemistry Teachmg will be a decisive factor in the quality of the materials prepared by the Pilot Project in Asii described earlier. UNESCO agrees to accept responsibility for the operational details of the project and the Office of Science Teaching will search out competent participants and specialists, but outstanding chemistry teachers in all countries must support their own IUPAC Commission to help provide sound and imaginative chemistry teaching materials for future generations of Asian teachers and students. HAENISCK, EDWARD R.,
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JOURNAL, 41, 590 (1964).
