Chemistry departments education research

In the words of a recent paper on MSE education (Flemings and Cahn 2000), chemistry departments have historically been interested in individual atoms and molecules, but increasingly they are turning to condensed phases . A report by the National Research Council (of the USA) in 1985 highlighted the opportunities for chemists in the materials field, and this was complemented by the NRC s later analysis (MSE 1989) which, inter alia, called for much increased emphasis on materials synthesis and processing. As a direct consequence of this recommendation, the National Science Foundation (of the USA) soon afterwards issued a formal call for research proposals in materials synthesis and processing (Lapporte 1995), and by that time it can be said that materials chemistry had well and truly arrived, in the... 

Our investigation, within Terrance s (2000) classification of action research, was collaborative action research. The LON project team existed from three groups of partners Seven teachers from primary schools, six of whom conducted interventions in their schools the adviser for chemistry from the National Board of Education for Slovenia and three chemical education researchers from the Department of Chemical Education and Informatics, University of Ljubljana. 

Albert Pilot studied Chemistry at Utrecht Urriversity in The Netherlands, with a major in analytical chemistry and a minor in educational research. His PhD was in 1980 on learning problem solving in science at the University of Twente. In 1996 he was appointed as full professor of curriculirm development in IVLOS Institute of Education at Utrecht University and in 1998 also as professor of Chemistry Education in the Department of Chemistry of that university. His research in Chemistry Education is concentrated in the field of curricitlirm development, context-based education and professiorral development of teachers. 

Robert West was bom in New Jersey and educated at Cornell University (B.A.) and Harvard University (A.M., Ph.D.). For the past 45 years he has been a faculty member in the chemistry department at the University of Wisconsin, where he is now E. G. Rochow Professor and Director of the Organosilicon Research Center. His many awards include the Frederick Stanley Kipping Award, the Wacker silicone prize, the Alexander von Humboldt Award, and the main group chemistry medal. He has published more than 600 scientific papers, mostly in the area of silicon chemistry. Major discoveries in his laboratories include the first soluble polysilanes (1978), the silicon-silicon double bond (1981), the first stable silylenes (1994), and electrically conducting organosilanes for high energy density batteries (2000). He is an airplane pilot and a mountaineer, with numerous first ascents in Canada and Alaska. 

Joseph S. Francisco, Purdue University I would like to add that the chemistry department at Purdue is considering partnering with the business school to supplement current courses and provide additional courses in entrepreneurship and business education without having students enroll in an additional 2-year program. Our research department has discovered a need and considers this an investment because it is good for the graduate students. 

William Schowalter I have a question related to polymer synthesis. First, an observation. In biochemistry departments, there s been tremendous interest in the structure of large natural molecules. In chemistry departments, people have run away about as fast as they can from the synthesis of large molecules, the kinds of polymers of commerce that most of us are familiar with. I would like to address the question first to Matt. He showed us results of the physical chemistry that came out of those syntheses. The work of Ned Thomas was made possible because some clever synthetic chemists made some special kinds of molecules. I am trying to figure out how that activity can be fit in. If this research is so important, how do we make a home available for the people who do the synthesis that is necessary for it to go on I don t see that happening in our educational structure, either in chemistry departments or in chemical engineering departments. 

Jan. 20, 1927, Cleveland, Ohio, USA - Aug. 10, 2004, Raleigh, NC, USA) Osteryoung received his bachelor s education at Ohio University and his Ph.D. at the University of Illinois. He was professor and Chairman of the Chemistry Department at Colorado State University, a professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo and research professor and Chair of the Department of Chemistry of North Carolina State University. He published about 225 original scientific papers, and was especially known for his papers on double potential step -> chronocoulometry, -> square-wave voltammetry, and room-temperature molten salt electrochemistry. He also initiated computer-controlled electrochemical measurements, which helped in developing and optimizing - pulse voltammetry. He served as an Associate Editor for the journal Analytical Chemistry. 

In addition to his impact internationally on science and education through his textbooks and research publications, Carl Noller played an important domestic role as an educator and scholar. He is remembered particularly for the very high standards of performance he demanded of himself as well as of his students. His intolerance of unscientific thinking and sloppy work was strongly influential in establishing a no-nonsense attitude of scholarly integrity which prevailed in the Stanford Chemistry Department. 

The only woman to be mentioned in the history of the Chemistry Department at the University of Edinburgh was Elizabeth E. Kempson.79 Bom on 3 January 1906 in Coventry, she was educated at Wolverhampton High School and obtained an honours degree in chemistry at the University of Birmingham in 1928. She stayed in Birmingham, undertaking research with Norman Haworth.80 Haworth s senior research assistant was Edmund George Vincent Percival, and in 1934 Kempson and Percival married. 

Lewis s research was wide-ranging and outstanding. He published important papers on chemical bonds, acid-base theory, and thermodynamics. He also developed firm ideas about howto build a chemistry department. His philosophy of education was something less than egalitarian. Writing in the Journal of Chemical Education, the distinguished chemist Gerald Branch spelled out Lewis s ideas "[F]or a chemist to be useful to... 

Eric Scerri studied chemistry at the Universities of London, Cambridge, and Southampton. He holds a Ph.D. in history and philosophy of science from King s College, London, where he wrote a thesis on the question of the reduction of chemistry to quantum mechanics. He has held several appointments in the United States, including a postdoctoral fellowship at Caltech, and is currently visiting professor in the chemistry department at Purdue University in Indiana. Scerri is the founder of the journal Foundations of Chemistry (http //www.wkap.nl/journals/foch), and has published extensively on the philosophy of chemistry in Synthese, the PSA proceedings. International Studies in Philosophy of Science, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, and Erken-ntnis, as well as in American Scientist, Scientific American, the Journal of Chemical Education, and other chemistry journals. His research interests include philosophical and historical aspects of quantum chemistry and the periodic system, as well as general issues in philosophy of chemistry. 

The United States is currently the leader in chemistry education. The strength of chemistry education comes largely from the few U.S. universities where it is within the chemistry department rather than a school of education. Gains in U.S. chemistry education research will come as additional universities adopt this model and foster chemistry education research. Competition from England, Germany, and Australia is projected to increase. 

Although this book significantly differs from the earlier Colloid Chemistry textbook, it nevertheless focuses on the specifics of educational and research work carried out at the Colloid Chemistry Division at the Chemistry Department of MSU. Many results presented in this book represent the art developed in the laboratories of the Colloid Chemistry Division, in the Laboratory of Physical-Chemical Mechanics (headed by E.D. Shchukin since 1967) of the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Science, and in other research institutions and industrial laboratories under the guidance of the authors and with their direct participation. Special attention is devoted in the book to the broad capabilities that the use of surfactants offers for controlling the properties and behavior of disperse systems and various materials due to the specific physico-chemical interactions taking place at interfaces. At the same time the authors made every effort to avoid duplication of material traditionally covered in textbooks on physical chemistry, electrochemistry, polymer chemistry, etc. These include adsorption from the gas phase on solid surfaces (by microporous adsorbents), the structure of the dense part of the electrical double layer, electrocapillary phenomena, specific properties of polymer colloids, and some other areas. 

In 1912 Lewis accepted a position as dean and chairman of the College of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. He remained at Berkeley for the rest of his hfe and transformed the chemistry department there into a world-class center for research and teaching. His reforms in the way chemistry was taught, a catalyst for the modernization of chemical education, were widely adopted throughout the United States. Lewis introduced thermodynamics to the curriculum, and his book on the same subject became a classic. He also brought to the study of physical chemistry such concepts as fugacity, activity and the activity coefficient, and ionic strength. 

A.K.Bakhshi is presently Head, Chemistry Department, Delhi University, where he has held the prestigious Sir Shankar Lai Chair of Chemistry since 1996. A double gold medalist. Dr. Bakhshi did his post-doctoral training in Germany and Japan. He is the author/coauthor of more than 140 research and education articles, five monographs and one patent. 

Judith Bennett is currently senior lecturer in the Department of Educational Studies at the University of York, UK, and Chair of the Research Committee of the Association for Science Education. Having obtained her first degree in Chemistry-with-Education, she taught chemistry and physics for a number of years, during which period she studied part time for an MA and PhD in Science Education. She then worked as Senior Editor of Science The Sailers Approach before moving to her current post. Her initial research focus on gender issues has developed into an interest in context-based approaches to the teaching of science and their effects on pupils, particularly their attitudes to science. 

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