News from ACS - A Wide Range of Chem Ed Programs
As presented at the Twelfth National Science, Technology, and Society Meeting in Worcester, MA, on 7 March 1997 by American Chemical Society (ACS) Education Director Sylvia Ware, the educational programs of the ACS span a wide age range, from upper elementary school through college. Many of these have been reviewed in past issues of this Newsletter -- WonderScience for grades 4-5 (Fall 1987 and Spring 1991 issues), ChemCom for grades 10-12 (Fall 1986, Spring 1987, Winter 1988, and Winter 1989 issues), and Chemistry in Context for nonmajors in college (Spring 1994 issue).
ChemCom is now available in its third edition, still presenting chemistry on a "need to know" basis through eight thematic units. The previous unit on Health has been retitled "Personal Chemistry and Choices" and has been considerably reorganized, as has also been the "Nuclear" unit -- to change its focus from armaments to applications of nuclear technologies. The "Putting It All Together" section which concludes each of the eight units has also been redone except for the opening "Water" unit. For example, the concluding section in the "Air" unit now focuses on indoor air quality. And the tables for evaluating foods in the "Food" unit have been expanded to include items in fast food restaurants.
Among the new educational programs developed or being developed by ACS are FACETS for grades 6-8, SciTeKS (for Science Technology: Knowledge and Skills) and Materials Science for grades 11 and 12, and Chemistry in a Biological Context, an introductory course for college majors. The SciTeKS program, designed for tech prep students who will soon be in the workplace, consists of 14 five-week modules with industry-based scenarios -- e.g., shutting down the assembly line when a can of a carbonated beverage tastes "off spec" and testing the contents accurately under a ticking clock that costs $500 a minute. The Materials Science program is designed to feed students into Chemistry in a Biological Context.
The FACETS program is a cross-curricular approach to teach middle-school students about things that interest them. The materials for each grade are a series of eight modules on topics considered to be of student interest -- physical fitness, food substitutes, packaging, weather and health, buildings, earthquakes, shorelines, and farmlands for grade 6; communicable diseases, aging, behavior, food, agriculture, water purification, acid rain, and sunken ships for grade 7; and fibers, oil spills, insecticides, populations, climate, energy, transportation, and information technology for grade 8. Each module begins with "the big question," which is analogous to the chapter challenge in Active Physics (see separate article, this issue). In the grade 8 module on fibers, student groups are to decide which fabric(s) to use for a school-related garment of their choice. In the grade 8 module on energy, student groups are to conduct an energy audit of their school and report on it. As in Active Physics, students then gain skills to answer "the big question" in the course of a series of (six) activities, which focus on ten investigation strategies: defining problems, finding information, investigating explanations, using models and simulations, designing and making, gathering data, analyzing and checking data, drawing conclusions, communicating findings, and reflecting and connecting.
FACETS was field tested with 10,000 students and their teachers over the course of two and a half years in 11 states and is now ready for classroom use. Like ChemCom, it is published by Kendall/Hunt, 4050 Westmark Drive, P.O. Box 1840 Dubuque, IA 52004-1840. Field testers are currently being sought for the SciTeKS program. Interested teachers should contact Ann Benbow at ACS, 1155 Sixteenth St., NW, Washington, DC 20036, (202)-872-6125, FAX: 202-872-8068, e-mail aeb97@acs.org
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