While reading the article “How Students Use Scientific Instruments To Create Understanding: CCD Spectrophotometers” (1), I was reminded of my student days in a philosophy class. In this class I was required to use many strange words that I did not understand to try to explain philosophies that I vaguely understood to my friends who understood them not at all. Every time I encountered the word “affordances” in the article cited above I tried to figure out what it might mean based on the context. I finally gave up and looked in my dictionary. It wasn’t there.

I surmise that this must be an “educationese” term that is delightfully meaningful to the authors, and it is my hope that in future papers these authors might define their terms when writing for mere chemists. I fear I spent my career being a chemistry teacher and not an educator.

Literature Cited

1. Malina, Eric G.; Nakhleh, Mary B. J. Chem. Educ. 2003, 80, 691-698.

See the author's reply.