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Delicious and Nutritious: National Chemical Week 2000
It is a widely held view that students can better learn concepts related to personal experience than concepts that lie outside of their personal experience or that appear unrelated to previous learning. Further, we now understand that "applied chemistry" does not mean expectations must be watered down. While teaching basic principles of chemistry is fundamental, the learning will have more value and more information will be retained when those principles are related to relevant applications.
When beginning students or adults not educated in the physical sciences think of chemistry, they usually envision a laboratory filled with scientific glassware and instruments and a chemist meticulously carrying out an experiment. This stereotype captures a facet of chemistry, but fosters the perception of chemistry as something that only happens in the laboratory--more an ongoing experimental process than the basis for understanding things people encounter every day. But chemistry that can be applied to the understanding of preparing and consuming food certainly meets the test of personal experience. Every learner, no matter how young or old, has had lots of experience to draw upon. Although specific foods and their methods of preparation vary from culture to culture, everyone eats! Moreover, many children, youths, and adults find the preparation of food to be intriguing and satisfying. Thus, the choice of "kitchen chemistry" as the theme for National Chemistry Week 2000 is a superb way to draw children, young people, and adults to the excitement of chemistry and chemical change and to raise an awareness of the role of chemistry in their daily lives. NCW will be observed November 5-11.
This issue of the Journal contains articles, descriptions of resources, and activities that can be used in support of National Chemistry Week 2000 as well as in your classroom any time during the year. JCE Classroom Activity #29, "Flat As a Pancake? Exploring Rising in Baked Goods", is accompanied by a two-page supplement, also in the familiar Classroom Activity format. News from Online features "Kitchen Chemistry" resources that can be accessed on the Internet. Former high school teacher Erica Jacobsen, with the assistance of Nancy Gettys, has compiled an extensive annotated list of "Resources in Food Chemistry" that have appeared in JCE.
Why Do I Have to Study Chemistry?
An article with this title appears on p 1300. Although phrased in many different ways, you have probably heard this question over and over--and that was just in your first year of teaching. In addition to the NCW-related kitchen chemistry articles, this issue contains more articles about making chemistry relevant. Author Kenneth Barker, who teaches in a Pennsylvania vocational technical school, poses a scenario that can be used as the basis of a writing assignment to help students answer the question themselves. Another approach to making chemistry relevant is described by Amy Roediger, an Ohio high school teacher (p 1305). She has developed a graded discussion procedure to actively involve students in thinking about chemistry-related events and phenomena reported by the news media. Additional articles dealing with relevance appear on pages 1301, 1303, and 1309. They describe projects targeted to college and university students, but several of their ideas could easily be adapted for the high school classroom.
Celebrate the MOLEnnium
Garfield, the feline creation of comic strip artist Jim Davis, hates Mondays with a passion. Many individuals--including chemistry teachers and their students--can identify with Garfield's animosity toward Mondays. But October 23 is a Monday that everyone should look forward to because it is Mole Day. This year's theme is Celebrate the MOLEnnium, and as anticipated, CEO Maury Oheler, President Art Logan, and the foundation board members have done their usual great job of planning an event for building student interest. Check out the National Mole Day Foundation Web site to find more information about the MOLEnnium Celebration and obtain a membership form so that you may obtain the full packet of Mole Day activities. If you do not have access to the Web, you may send $15 new membership (or $10 renewal) with your name, address, telephone number, and email address to National Mole Day Foundation, Inc., 1220 South 5th Street, Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin 53821.
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