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Writing Chemistry Jingles as an Introductory Activity in a High School Chemistry Class Peter F. Heid* Science Department, Wauconda High School, Wauconda, Illinois 60084 United States ABSTRACT: Starting the school year in an introductory high school chemistry class can be a challenge. The topic and approach is new to the students; many of the early chapters in the texts can be a bit tedious; and for many students the activities are uninspiring. My goal in the first few weeks of school is to hook the students on chemistry by getting them to meet the subject from the start in a relatively enticing and entertaining fashion. This is done through the adaptation of Burma Shave sign advertisements, which appeared on the sides of country roads in the United States in the mid-20th century. Using the model of Burma Shave jingles, students create chemistry-focused jingles, having fun with chemistry in the process. KEYWORDS: Elementary/Middle School Science, General Public, High School/Introductory Chemistry, Curriculum, Interdisciplinary/Multidisciplinary, Communication/Writing, Humor/Puzzles/Games, Internet/ Web-Based Learning, Constructivism, Student-Centered Learning
eginning a new school year with a “hook” to grab students’ attention is a challenge for all teachers, but starting the high school year with sophomores and juniors in chemistry presents a special set of concerns. While some students may actually look forward to chemistry with anticipation, many others dread the dry material and fear humorless teachers. The topic and the approach are new and include a vocabulary that is largely unknown to the students. I felt that writing about chemistry in an informal way could be a good method to gently ease students into the material. As I started planning for the current school year, I recalled that as a child I looked forward to the Burma Shave signs that lined the country highways near my home. I always found these visual breaks on the road trip to be very entertaining and enlightening. I hoped that, if students read some of these folksy slogans, they would be inspired to come up with chemistry equivalents. Burma Shave was a brand of brushless shaving cream marketed quite successfully through the use of roadside advertising signs.1 These signs appeared from 1925 to 1963 in most of the lower 48 states. Typically, six consecutive small signs would be posted along the edge of the road, spaced for easy reading by the passing motorists.2 The last sign was predictably the name of the product: “Burma Shave”. The signs were printed with all capital letters and had the format of a jingle, with an end rhyme in two of the lines.3 Most of the signs either blatantly advertised the product or suggested their wares for the lovelorn.4 Other signs featured a traffic safety message, usually about speeding.5 Some signs during the years of World War II addressed military issues.6 I always anticipated the punch line and even remembered and recounted some of my favorites. I hoped that I could use a similar approach (see Figure 1) with my chemistry students as a way to help them warm up to me as an instructor as well as to the subject of chemistry while
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Copyright r 2011 American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.
Figure 1. Picturing what a Burma Shave advertisement might look like if traveling down a chemistry (not country) road.
dispelling student worries about the dry material in chemistry class or my lack of a sense of humor. The activity was not to focus on instruction in rhyme or verse or advertising history; however, an increase in chemistry content knowledge was anticipated.
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’ INCORPORATING THIS ACTIVITY The use of verse to teach chemistry has been tried before and previously published; teachers of Advanced Placement chemistry have successfully used poetry to help students understand some of the more difficult chemistry topics.7 The use of haiku in an introductory chemistry class to aid student comprehension of chemistry fundamentals has also been reported.8 Additionally, college instructors of first-year general chemistry classes have found chemistry poetry to be a successful means to increase the students’ enjoyment and understanding of chemistry.9 For the first implementation of this activity, I gave students the first part of their assignment during the first week of school. They were instructed to look up the classic Burma Shave jingles on the Internet and to print out and bring in their five favorites. When students returned to class the next day, they read some of their discovered gems aloud to the class. The students’ next assignment was to write a jingle of their own. The only requirements were that the jingle must involve chemistry and follow the pattern seen in the original slogans but end with “Do Chemistry” rather than the ubiquitous “Burma Shave”. During the classroom discussion of potential ideas, the students were reminded that this project was to be about the topic of chemistry, and that all ideas must reflect some first-hand connection with the topic, either through personal experience, classroom instruction, or recollection of a science item in the news. Although I am usually enthusiastic about the results of any class project, I was initially unsure about a project this early in the school year. However, when the students recited and turned in their work the next week, I soon realized that my concerns were unfounded. My criteria for the student work were met, and in many cases the students were so confident about their submission that they presented several jingles. The student submissions fit into one of several general topic areas as shown in the examples in Boxes 1, 2, and 3.
’ CONCLUSIONS This activity not only proved to be a successful hook for the start of the school year but also accomplished several personal goals for the class in general: 1395
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• Students conducted Internet research about chemistry, though in a rather oblique fashion. • The project engendered some dinnertime conversation about chemistry at home between the students and their parents and grandparents, as was evident from parent comments at the open house. • Students looked for chemistry and chemical applications in daily life. • Most importantly, this project succeeded in bringing a laugh and light touch to the class that remained through the first semester and into the second semester. As anticipated, the students enjoyed the approach and gladly came up with jingles that promoted chemistry in the classroom, encouraged lab safety, or made connections between chemistry and everyday life. This project certainly met the goals that I had set, and I will do this again in subsequent years. Teachers may wish to recommend that students browse through the index of their chemistry text to discover possible jingle topics and to encounter novel chemicals and chemistry-related vocabulary to use as starting points for their own poems.
’ AUTHOR INFORMATION Corresponding Author
*E-mail:
[email protected].
’ ACKNOWLEDGMENT The author wishes to thank the 2010 2011 chemistry classes of Wauconda High School for their participation in this project. Their delightful contributions and their inspired sense of creativity were necessary for the success of this project. ’ REFERENCES (1) Eisner Museum Burma Shave Exhibit. William F. Eisner Museum of Advertising and Design. http://www.eisnermuseum.org/_burma_ shave/page1.html (accessed July 2011). (2) Waterman, M. Feeling Nostalgic? Now You’ll Rave! Here’s the Story of Burma Shave. Backwoods Home Magazine. http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles/waterman37.html (accessed July 2011). (3) Woodbury, C. The Verse by the Side of the Road. Out West— The Newspaper That Roams. http://www.outwestnewspaper.com/ burmashave.html (accessed July 2011). (4) Burma-Shave.org. http://burma-shave.org/jingles/1936/eds_face (accessed July 2011). (5) Burma-Shave.org. http://burma-shave.org/jingles/1959/if_daisies (accessed July 2011). (6) Burma-Shave.org. http://burma-shave.org/jingles/1942/lets_ make_hitler (accessed July 2011). (7) Bertholdo, S. Teacher Puts Chemistry into Motion with Poetry. The Acorn Online. http://theacorn.com/news/2006-12-28/Schools/Teacher_ puts_chemistry_into_motion_with_poetry.html (accessed July 2011). (8) Braga, J; Kantz, M. R. Writing Haiku as an Activity in a Fundamentals of Chemistry Class. J. Chem. Educ. 2010, 87, 1017. (9) Furlan, P. Y.; Kitson, H.; Andes, C. Chemistry, Poetry, and Artistic Illustration: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Teaching and Promoting Chemistry. J. Chem. Educ. 2007, 84, 1625–1630.
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