Everyday Life and Chemistry - Essentials of Chemical Education - page 238

citizens' initiative. Role-playing games and decision games are based on existing
awareness and can expand it, put positions in question, confront with opposite
views, differentiate positions concerning specific themes of society. Chemistry
teaching requires not only students' motivation but must also motivate further
learning - particularly to motivate learning outside of school.” [ 24 ]
Finally, the social relation of everyday life and chemistry should be targeted for
environmental education of young students. Demuth [ 25 ] suggested: “For an
environmental education not all possible environmental topics should be aspired,
but much more important is to work intensive with a few projects.” Some project
ideas are: “Where to deposit our waste, what is recycling, how to save energy, what
have refrigerators to do with the ozone problem?” [ 25 ]
In the project “Nitrogen analysis,” Demuth [ 26 ] undertakes in collaboration with
some schools “to investigate the concentration of ammonium and nitrate ions in the
soil of small gardens of relatives or friends or of the field of a farmer. These
investigations of soil were carried out to understand related environmental
problems; and also for farmers and gardeners to help them to fertilize selectively.”
[ 26 ] Projects are a helpful way to realize environment education (see also Chap. 3).
Problems and Exercises
P8.1 Many phenomena of everyday life or nature can be “translated” into chemistry
or chemical reactions. Give five examples for those phenomena and their
scientific interpretation. Look for useful experiments according to these
examples and write chemical equations.
P8.2 In some cases, chemicals of your kitchen or bathroom can replace the
chemicals of the laboratory. Give five examples and explain the experiments
or reactions. Describe topics or contexts of chemical education where the use
of those chemicals may be helpful.
P8.3 For students' motivation, everyday life phenomena should be put at the
beginning of a topic in chemistry class. Give five examples, describe the
experiments, and their interpretation. How do the lessons continue after
successful motivation?
P8.4 The attitudes of students concerning chemistry or chemical education are
often negative (“chemistry is bad for our health,” “in chemistry classes we
have mostly formulae we cannot understand”). What steps or actions could be
helpful to turn those attitudes around?
P8.5 There are some days free of classes and you have to plan a chemistry project.
What topic, what context you like to choose for those days? What tasks or
problems should the students solve in these days? Which questionnaire would
you develop to ask about the interests of your students? In which way would
you respect different wishes of boys and girls?