cific Northwest Laboratories. Students are assigned specific tasks, on a half-day basis, in support of work being conducted, and they receive wages for their services. While this program provides "hands-on" learning experience, it also provides many with an opportunity for summer employment after high school as they work toward their degrees at colleges and universities. Retired scientists working as volunteers in service t o science education are virtually an untapped resource. The followine success storv ooints out how valuable thev can he. A .. retired engineer provides support for science education classes at Pasco Hiah School acting as a mentor as well as giving assistance in the completion of homework. His enthusiasm and perseverance has resulted in the organization of community resources that will pay for the costs of bringing Julius Sumner Miller, science education notable, to area schools in October of this year. Some 10,000 Tri-City students will view Miller's science demonstrations in person or on live television in their classrooms. A recently completed program a t Hanford called Frontiers '85 orovided 77 students from 77 different hieh schools in the state of Washington the opportunity to spend one week in orohlems-solvine activities. At the center of the program were mentors working with students solving specific problems in the individual mentor's field. Mentor activities ranged from Desert Ecosystems and Artificial Intelligence to Nuclear Radiation. Students described their obserGations in journals as a requirement for the technical writing segment of the program. Participants in the program a t Hanford included the Centrum Foundation. a nonorofit education organization, Hanford Contractors Tri-City Universitv Center. Tri-Cities area school districts. NORCUS. and the ~ o l i d Inn. a ~ The Holiday Inn contributed signifi: cantly by providing rooms, meals, and meeting facilities for just over $100 per student. The student costs were paid by their own schools. Other programs that support science education at Hanford include speaker programs that make available presenters on a wide variety of topics. One is the ~ a t t e n erobot "Cuhot" that solves the Ruhic Cube in 30 seconds or less and looks at it only one time. This presentation is one of six available from Battelle in its DOE-funded Sharing Science with Schools program. Battelle operates an education program that supports teacher education aimed a t enhancine science activities in the classroom. The DOE'S Hanford Science Center conducts school tours that emphasize the concept of the Center as an extension of the classroom. I t also conducts two teacher workshops each year on energy. Science kits on nuclear science, electricity, and engines are available on loan as are some 40 energy and science films. The Science Center also operates a children's Summer Energy program for 250 young people ages 9-13 emphasizing activities on energy. I encourage you to offer your resources to similar science centers in your own community. NORCUS, Northwest Colleges and Universities for Science. coordinates the worklstudv. oroeram that hrinas some 60 Gaduate students and collegeluniversity educators to work in their fields a t Hanford in order to complete graduate work and become hetter acquainted with work being conducted in the field. I'm sure each of you has a concern about the need to strenethen science oroarams in vour schools. Think of vourself as a resource and bk ready to share what you haveas a n individual. a chapter, or an industrv. After vou decide that you want to be a ;eso&ce, he cautio;~ and take some time to find out what others have done so that you can take advantage of their successes and their "bloody noses". There are many of us who are more than willing to share our experience for the benefit of science, schools, and you!
What Should We Teach Them in High School? Keith 0. Berry Universily of Puget Sound Tacoma, WA 98416 Look at them-the freshmen sitting in your high school science class. Imagine where they will be in just 8 years. How many will need your course for college? The truth is that in 8 years more than twice as many of your students will have spent time behind bars than will have a bachelor's degree in either biology, chemistry, physics, earth science, or science education.3 Let us look a t the type of analysis Michael Leyden did to produce the above conclusion, because i t is instructive to recognize the type of "clientele" we have in our student body. Take 100 students as a samole class. The national hieh school dropout rate is 2870, leaving only 72 who graduate &d have even a n o~portunitvto attend colleee.4 ~treitbergerihosea of college from California, all of whom taught introductory college chemistry. If you believe those professors who were polled, the following conclusions can he drawn. 1) Students entering their classes had marginal preparation in hieh school chemistrv. i) There should de better training in basic algebra, particularly proportions, exponents, significant figures, and dimensional analysis. 3) Students should have more opportunity to think and express rhamselws in qunnlirarive term*. 4 1 Thp high school chrmistry content for those who will he nonstienre mairlrs should he different iwm the cuntent offered 11, vn,. speetive science majors. 5) Hieh sehool ebemistrv should focus on "basics". such as: notncnclature, formula uriting, percentage composition calwlatiuns, balancing equatims,~asIms, the mnlrconrept. a~io"sirnple"atumic thrury. Furget ahout qunntum mechanics, nlolecular orbitalr, and free energy. 6) The high sehool course should not try to duplicate college chemistry. 7) There should he an interrelationship between topics selected from nontraditional chemistry areas, into the high sehool eurriculum.
I wish to comment on some of those conclusions just a bit. Items 1.2.3. . . .and 5 surelv must have been anticioated. Those professors are telling us, through Streitherger's essay, that th~.irstudents are underoreoared. Which of us hasn't heard or made the same lament? TO make the job of the professor easier, and the learnina hv the student more comolete. . . studentsshould come with ietter skills in chemistry, mathematics, English, writina, - logic. - Notice also that the results showed that those professors polled had specific suggestions of things that should not he taught in high school. First, we must rle~~elopcurricu~la whichhn not shortrhnnge the aspiring scirntist hut whirh more closely serve the needs argue that it is of that other large group of students. because we have "fiddled" with the old straightforward chemistry curriculum that we have lost students. They suggest that when we adopt Madison Avenue's approaches to sell our product, then we are on Madison Avenue's turf, and they are likely to win the game. Let's stop developing new courses and get back to teaching chemistry, they say. In my judgement, we do need to reestablish a sense that chemistry is useful both as a profession and as a course of study. We need to demonstrate that there are desirable, enjoyable opportunities for all students. And we must do i t without for-
any
This ratio was taken from recent figures from the Bureau of Justice Statistics and The National Center for Education Statistics. Quoted in Leyden, Michael €3. Sci. Teach. 1984, 51 (March),27. "non., Times-Courier, 1983, (April),88. Volume 63 Number 8
August 1986
697
saking a general, broad-spectrum curriculum that recognizes the needs of a varietv of students. W e nrrd tt, provide agresrer awareness of career oppurtunities. \Vhensrudents and rhrgcneral puhliconly hearsbout the problems produced by chemists; chemical industries, and others, they surely must have feelings of antipathy toward the sciences. How can we correct that situation? By letting students know of the opportunities in the chemical profession. By the time I had completed a year of chemistry as a high school student, I was aware of the use of chemistry in the cement industrv (bv studvine the reactions of chemistry when we studied thk alkaline earth elements), the steel industrv (when studvine . .. the processes of iron smelting and reactions or iron), chrwing gum, the s u l f ~ industry, ~r etc. Finallv. l sureest cheniisrrv is toc~important to save for a I believe that it should be part of the science single program at all levels, in the elementary school, in junior high, and in the middle schools, as well as the high school. A single high school course would he more valuable and enjoyable for the student if they had already had an effective introduction to the joys of the science early on. We must teach science a t every level.
Household items were used whenever possible, hoth in the experiments and for the homework, to assist the students in grasping the relationship of chemistry t o their lives. For example, table salt, iron nails, and copper BB's were used to prepare mixtures; solutions of baking soda, vinegar, and 7Up were used in the acid-base experiments; physical state changes were illustrated with ice and dry ice. Nylon and polyurethane polymers, as well as aspirin and other esters, were oreoared so the students would recognize the value of s y t h r t i r chemicals and rhe chemiral i n d k y . At the conclusion of the iirst week, chemistry "magic" was perlbrmed, hoth by the instructor and the students. i he magic show was expressly designed to meet the fourth ohjective cited above. From the students' responses, that ohjective was met. We received favorable feedback from students and parents alike. As instructors. we were oleased with the outcome well behaved and of the course. The students were were not hesitant t o participate in discussions. Especially enjoyable was the enthusiasm and excitement the students brought to class. We heartily recommend a program of this sort for elementary students. Interested instructors are welcome to write for more details, including example laboratory manuals and lists of reagents.
College Chemistry for Kids
Two Cultures. One Problem: Educating and Informing the Non-technologist and the Technologist
a
Martin B. Jones and Rebecca Monley University of North Dakota Grand Forks, ND 58202
For two weeks last summer. several elementarv school children in grades 3-6 participated in an enrichment proeram desiened to develoo. nurture. and challenae them hv " providing itimulating, hands-on rxperirncrs. Thi~ohjectives uf therhrmisrrv oorrion ot rhis prorram were fourfold: r l J to introduce the %dents to the-rudiments of the scientific method, with particular emphasis on observation, (2) to help the students discover, via experimentation, some fundamental aspects of chemistry, iucluding various schemes for the classification of matter (metals versus nonmetals, compounds versus mixtures, acids versus bases), the difference between physical and chemical changes, and the physical states of matter, (3) to convey that chemistry is relevant to everyday life, and (4) to kindle a spark of interest in chemistry. Each day, the students spent approximately 30 minutes in a classroom settine. disrussine the previous dav's experiments, sharing the results of tLeir hbmework assignment, and listenine to an introduction to the current experiments. The remain& 90 minutes were spent in the iahoratory.
898
Journal of Chemical Education
E. E. Fllby
We~tinghouseIdaho Nuclear Company. Inc. Idaho Falis, ID 83403 Ever since the study and development of science and technology became a recognized set of disciplines, there have been communication problems between the practitioners and nonpractitioners of these disciplines. C. P. Snow defined the ~ r o h l e m sin terms of "Two Cultures" and hiehliehted what he saw as the more significant aspects. For some time after his lecture, the debate often became fragmented over details: Are there only two or are there many "cultures"? However, the substance has remained basically unchanged: Those who have a more-or-less technological bent often cannot, or will not, communicate effectively with those who do n o t have such a bent, and vice versa. T h e problems arise hoth in the educational systemand in our public information channels. Yet hoth groups have the same basic problem: All must function where technological wonders and problems are inextricably intertwined with every aspect of society.
