The nose and tongue as chemical detectors

Human chemical senses are the gatekeepers of our digestive system. Chemical separation combined with human sensory perception has been used to isolate and identify a natural non-steroidal anti-inflammatory compound in olive oil.

Arresting the decline in senior school chemistry

Enrolments in Australian Year 11 and year 12 chemistry are declining. In 1992, 23% of Australian year 12 students studied chemistry, decreasing to 18% in 2010. For science as a whole, the decrease is even more dramatic, from 94% to 51%. The decrease is slowing, but is continuing.
How should we respond to the report? Firstly, we should realise that it is not all gloom and doom. Secondly, education is not solely the responsibility of curriculum authorities and teachers. Each RACI member can communicate, inform and generally educate the wider community about the excitement and value of chemical science. Just a couple of hours of your time is not a panacea, but it can still make long-lasting impacts and affect career choices: even the largest beach consists of tiny individual grains of sand.

The signature pedagogy in chemistry education

Laboratories are the signature pedagogy in chemistry education. The chemical sciences are based in investigations that are reproducible, and objectively testable. Some investigations might involve testing a hypothesis – does a carbonate produce carbon dioxide gas when reacted with acid? Other activities may not have an obvious hypothesis – how much salt is in this detergent package? Nevertheless, laboratory work is a distinctive part of science generally, and of chemistry in particular.

Laboratory work is a significant part of working in the chemistry profession. The best way for students to learn what scientists do, is to do what scientists do. The only way to conduct a laboratory investigation is to get into a laboratory and to do it!

Learning and doing chemistry in a laboratory is an important and irreplaceable part of a chemistry education.

Recueil : journal of the Royal Netherlands Chemical Society.

Title from cover.

Improving laboratory learning

It has been most encouraging to see science (and innovation)at the forefront of Australian domestic politics in recentmonths. It is also reassuring to see broader bipartisanagreement from the major political parties on the importance ofscience and research to the nation’s future. Governments maychoose to prioritise the areas of scientific endeavour thatwarrant greater support but the acknowledgement by ourpolitical leaders (federal and state) that science and innovationis vital for the nation’s future has not always been forthcoming.The funding mechanisms (e.g. grant schemes) and businessincentives (e.g. taxation) put in place by governments areimportant catalysts of ideally spontaneous processes leading toinnovation and economic advances. However, this pathway isvery complicated.

Scientific ethics

Scientific ethics is and should be part of a science education (Chemistry in Australia, February 2014 issue, page 38). The Australian Curriculum implies ethical practice as early as year 2 when collecting and recording observations, and explicitly discussing ethical considerations from as early as year 3, in which students are expected to learn that science knowledge helps people to understand the effect of their actions, and in particular, considering how materials including solids and liquids affect the environment in different ways, and deciding what characteristics make a material a pollutant. As students progress through various year levels, this becomes more involved, for example at year 7, they learn that solutions to contemporary issues that are found using science and technology, may impact on other areas of society and may involve ethical considerations. At tertiary level, students are also expected to have an awareness of the ethical requirements that are appropriate for the discipline. Professional organisations, like the RACI, have long had a Code of Ethics (By-Law 13), and more employers are also introducing formal or informal codes: for example, the Victorian government requires that all public sector employees uphold the following values: responsiveness, integrity, impartiality, accountability, respect, leadership, and human rights.

Mainstreaming change

Over the last few months I have been watching Madam Secretary on DVD. The television series revolves around the professional and personal life of a female US Secretary of State, and also features a female Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (head of the military), a female Attorney General, and a female director of the FBI. In real life, the United States has had three female Secretaries of State in recent administrations, including one who could be the next President, significant numbers of women at the top levels of government, and more than thirty 4 star admirals and generals.

Intensive mode learning and threshold concepts

Intensive mode teaching and learning refers to educational activities that occur on fewer days, and longer each day, than a “traditional” unit or module in the discipline. In traditional education, a full-time student would study between four and eight subjects or units per term or per semester at school, TAFE or university. Hence each subject or unit is effectively part-time study, taking up between 10% and 25% of the study hours available in each week. By way of contrast, an intensive mode subject might take between 30% and 100% of the available study hours. Examples include field trips and study tours, during which students devote 100% of the available hours to a single subject. In chemistry, the University of New England and Central Queensland University offer course by distance education, but students are expected to attend compulsory residential schools. During these residential schools, the students participate in chemistry laboratories and tutorials, all day, every day for up to one week.

On the nature of "context" in chemical education

Some of the most pressing problems currently facing chemical education throughout the world are rehearsed. It is suggested that if the notion of "context" is to be used as the basis for an address to these problems, it must enable a number of challenges to be met. Four generic models of "context" are identified that are currently used or that may be used in some form within chemical education as the basis for curriculum design. It is suggested that a model based on physical settings, together with their cultural justifications, and taught with a socio-cultural perspective on learning, is likely to meet those challenges most fully. A number of reasons why the relative efficacies of these four models of approaches cannot be evaluated from the existing research literature are suggested. Finally, an established model for the representation of the development of curricula is used to discuss the development and evaluation of context-based chemical curricula.