Taking Ownership - American Chemical Society

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Chemical Education Today edited by

Erica K. Jacobsen Associate Editor, Precollege Chemistry

Laura E. Slocum

Taking Ownership

Assistant Editor, Precollege Chemistry

Erica K. Jacobsen* and Laura E. Slocum

As I am sure other parents have discovered, when dealing with one's children, ownership has the potential to affect one's behavior. Picture a common scene at the store: Child sees toy. Child “needs” toy. A parent's response might be “Sure, you may spend your allowance money on it.” When it changes from mom's money being spent on the item, to the child's own money being spent instead, a child's “need” is quickly rethought and can often evaporate. An issue to consider for older children might be the laundry. It seems that if I am the one doing the washing, drying, and folding, less care is taken by the child to determine which items are clean or dirty when transferring a floor's worth of heaped clothes to the hamper. But, if ownership of the laundry work is shifted to the child, it can have a positive effect on only truly dirty items making their way to the washer. This idea of improved behavior based on ownership can also extend to the chemistry classroom and laboratory. Alaimo, Langenhan, and Tanner describe this in their creation of laboratory safety teams (DOI: 10.1021/ed100207d). While the idea was implemented in their university-level organic chemistry course, they note, “it could be appropriately modified and implemented in nearly any science laboratory course”. At the beginning of the year, students receive overall safety training, including a module in which students examine “a fume hood that has been intentionally set up to illustrate typical lab hazards” (Figure 1). In the past, for each of the following lab sessions, a faculty member would share safety information specific to each lab. They describe their change: “[W]e have shifted responsibility for the prelab safety discussion to our students”. Safety teams of 2-3 students take over the duties of presenting a particular lab's safety information and prepare a handout, as well as assisting in monitoring the lab during the experiment, and performing a postlab inspection. They found that students “seem to view themselves as a part of the process of safeguarding the lab. Student responsibility manifests itself not only in attitude but also in behavior.” Student ownership also plays a large part in the organic chemistry assignment Tanya Schneider uses to introduce the idea of aromaticity (DOI: 10.1021/ed100218z). Students first discuss what the term “aromatic” means to them, and then learn about the chemical definition of the term. Afterward, they embark on a hunt for a plant that has a scent to continue their study of aromaticity. “[Students] research the chosen plant and identify at least one molecule responsible for its fragrance. The final required step was to consider the resulting molecule and decide whether it would be considered chemically aromatic.” Class results were collected on the Web in a template, which could include information about the plant itself, the identified scent molecule, along with a photo of the plant (Figure 2). The class results yielded a collection of scent molecules that were an interesting mix of both chemically aromatic and nonaromatic. Schneider describes one of the benefits of the experience in that it “gives students a sense of ownership of the topic discovered”. 764

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Figure 1. The cover from JCE's April 2002 issue, which asks students “What's wrong in this lab?”, is similar to the lab training described by Alaimo, Langenhan, and Tanner in their article, “Safety Teams: An Approach To Engage Students in Laboratory Safety”, J. Chem. Educ, 2010, 87 (DOI: 10.1021/ed100207d).

ACS High School Day Program News The fall American Chemical Society (ACS) meeting is fast approaching, including the High School Day Program, which will be held all day Sunday, August 22, 2010. An overview of the program (DOI: 10.1021/ed100570e) reveals a full lineup of presentations. Many presentations are linked to the meeting theme of Chemistry for Preventing and Combating Disease, with others focusing on food science. The Journal's morning presentation will focus on ready-to-use ways to connect candy to chemistry concepts. It is also not too early to mark the spring ACS meeting on your calendar: March 27-31, 2011 in Anaheim, California. The meeting's call for papers is scheduled to open in August 2010. Laura's Take on the Issue As I read through the articles for this month's issue, I was also writing my final exams for the year and became a bit

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Vol. 87 No. 8 August 2010 pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc r 2010 American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc. 10.1021/ed100608t Published on Web 06/17/2010

Chemical Education Today

Figure 2. Example of a student's completed Web template for their selected scent molecule. See “Discovering Chemical Aromaticity Using Fragrant Plants”, J. Chem. Educ, 2010, 87 (DOI: 10.1021/ed100218z).

“jealous”. I was so glad to be ending the school year, but there were also several ideas in this issue that I wished I had seen earlier in the year because I definitely would have used them in my courses. My “jealous” feelings came from thinking that if only I had seen these ideas sooner, perhaps part of my course could have gone better, which is perhaps not an uncommon thought for teachers at the end of the term or school year. Then I quickly stopped myself, took a deep breath, and reminded myself that this is part of what this Journal and teaching is all about—a continuous sharing of ideas, learning from each other, and growing as instructors and professionals. I think all of us need these reminders not only as the year ends, but also at the beginning, which is rapidly approaching for us all. As this next school year approaches, we wonder what this coming year really holds for us,

r 2010 American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.

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we have excitement, but sometimes doubts. I need to remember that I will always be able to pick up ideas from the Journal and other teachers that help me to teach my classes better every year. Erica touched on two of the articles that gave me good ideas and another was Nick Flynn's article “'Design Your Own Disease' Assignment: Teaching Students To Apply Metabolic Pathways” (DOI: 10.1021/ed100279z). Though his article describes using the assignment to teach students metabolic regulation and biosignaling mechanisms, he further discusses how concepts related to peer review and scientific literacy are emphasized in the context of disease processes. I teach an Introduction to Biochemistry class for juniors and senior in the spring semester at my school, but it is not just for this class that I found this article useful. I also do several research projects with my first-year chemistry students and I really like the approach that Flynn takes along with his view of peer review. I have not completely decided which of my class projects I will modify or if I will design a completely new project in order to use Flynn's project ideas, but I am definitely going to modify his project to use in my classroom with my first-year chemistry students next year. I hope you all are having a wonderful summer and are as ready as possible to start the coming school year. I know for some of you, like me, the start of school is just around the corner. Precollege Chemistry Featured Article 5Baldwin, B. W.; Hasbrouck, S.; Smith, J.; Kuntzleman, T. S. Classroom Activity Connections: Demonstrating Various Flame Tests Using Common Household Materials. J. Chem. Educ. 2010, 87 (DOI: 10.1021/ed100296s).

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