Chemistry tours for high school students: Connecting chemistry and business

Abstract

Efforts to show high school students the relevance of chemistry in their lives are more powerful when students go on field trips to visit businesses that are related to chemistry. The author describes such a trip, where students visited the Dept. of Justice Criminalistics Lab at a local university.

Field Trips Put Chemistry in Context for Non-Science Majors

“…3 This is not to suggest that field trips should entirely replace traditional laboratories that allow students to draw conclusions from laboratory data and gain an understanding of the scientific method. It was found that the majority of students felt that field trips were better educational experiences than were traditional laboratory exercises and recommended that the field trip portion of the class should be expanded.…”

“…It was found that the majority of students felt that field trips were better educational experiences than were traditional laboratory exercises and recommended that the field trip portion of the class should be expanded. 3 This is not to suggest that field trips should entirely replace traditional laboratories that allow students to draw conclusions from laboratory data and gain an understanding of the scientific method. Field trips can however complement traditional laboratory experiments by providing real-world learning situations that help put chemistry in context for non-science majors.…”

“…The stated goal is to "establish chemical principles on a need-to-know basis within a contextual framework of significant social, political, ethical, and economic issues." Published articles in this Journal focus primarily on field trips for secondary students (2,3) and courses for science majors (4)(5)(6). Field trips help students "weave" chemistry into the fabric of social, political, economic, and ethical issues within their communities.…”

“…1 Although field trips are relatively common in some biological and earth sciences courses, they appear to be seldom used in chemistry courses. Published articles in this Journal focus primarily on field trips for secondary students (2,3) and courses for science majors (4)(5)(6). One author notes that field trips rank high on the list of attractive features for general education chemistry courses for non-science majors but includes only one field experience in the course, a water sampling lab (7).…”

A Chemistry Workshop for Secondary School Science Teachers: Addressing Multiple Laboratory Issues

“…It has been shown that secondary science instruction is most effective when it is made relevant to the lives of the students (8). This requires that teachers remain current on chemical discoveries and applications that have an impact on everyday life.…”