Demonstration shows are a popular form of chemical education outreach used to increase interest, engagement, and appreciation of chemistry. Although practitioners often include instructional elements, evaluation has been limited to children's attitudes toward science rather than their understanding of the underlying concepts presented. In 2006, we…

The Test of Logical Thinking (TOLT) and the Group Assessment of Logical Thinking (GALT) are two of the instruments most widely used by science educators and researchers to measure students' formal reasoning abilities. Based on Piaget's cognitive development theory, formal thinking ability has been shown to be essential for student achievement in…

ChemEd Bridges is an NSF-funded project that provides career and professional development opportunities for chemistry faculty members who teach at two-year colleges (2YCs). We broaden the interests and the horizons of these faculty members by building bridges between them and the broader community of chemical educators. In particular, we have…

Few studies demonstrate the impact of teaching chemistry embedded in a context that has relevance to high school students. We build upon our prior work showing that pharmacology topics (i.e., drugs), which are inherently interesting to high school students, provide a useful context for teaching chemistry and biology. In those studies, teachers…

We report successfully integrating webinar and blogging into an undergraduate chemistry and biochemistry seminar course. Commercial collaboration software linked speaker-operated slides with two-way voice and video effectively connecting the audience and presenter from different states. Student responses to the technology and seminar content were…

A group of five graduate students and a faculty mentor used the cultural popularity of forensics to develop a first-year undergraduate seminar. This course fulfilled two main objectives: First, the graduate student instructors developed professionally through a two-year process of creating, instructing, and revising a course. Second, a variety of…

Because Lewis structures provide a direct connection between molecular structure and properties, the ability to construct and use them is an integral component of many chemistry courses. Although a great deal of time and effort has been dedicated to development of "foolproof" rules, students still have problems with the skill. What is more, many…

The Research and Engineering Apprenticeship Program of the Academy of Applied Science has funded several high school student summer internships to work within the Department of Chemistry at the University of Texas at El Paso. Over the last nine years, young Mexican-American scholars have been recruited into STEM-specific (science, technology,…

Princeton Applied Research Corporation (PAR) was a small electronic instrument company in early 1960s but once they entered electrochemistry they were very successful. Since then they have developed and designed successful instruments with their tremendous knowledge and have made great contribution to the field of analytical chemistry.

Evaluation, based on a post-workshop survey, of the effectiveness of a set of workshops to promote curriculum reform is described. Workshops brought benefits beyond simple uptake of modules, with 57% of respondents reporting some change in teaching practice and 72% expressing positive outcomes as a result of workshop attendance. Workshops lasting…

Inspired by the Salters Approach (UK) and ChemCom (USA), units for a new curriculum for chemistry teaching are being developed in Germany based on theories of scientific literacy, motivation, and situated learning. The curriculum follows a context-based approach. Rather than using the structure of the discipline, it generates basic chemical…

We report on a study of a laboratory teaching apprenticeship program designed to improve graduate teaching assistant (GTA) performance. To catalyze GTAs as laboratory teachers we constructed learning goals, synthesized previous literature into a design model and a developmental path, and built two instruments to measure 12 strategic pedagogical…

This article presents a lab experience to study detergency from a physicochemical point of view intended for undergraduate students. By means of a simple experimental device, we analyze the influence of the surfactant concentration in both distilled water and tap water. Our method is based on the measurement of diffuse reflectances of polyester…

An innovative teaching and research partnership was developed in collaboration with public high school chemistry teachers from the Talawanda (Ohio) School District and faculty, staff, and students from Miami University. With the involvement of high school teachers, chemistry faculty, postdoctoral associates, and several graduate and undergraduate…

Although teachers in principle are prepared to make use of science centers, such excursions often fail to facilitate learning processes. Therefore, it is necessary to improve the link between science centers and schools. The design and evaluation of valuable outreach projects may enhance students' out-of-school science learning. In our study, we…