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Why introductory chemistry is boring: a long-term historical perspective

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Re: Why introductory chemistry is boring: a long-term historical perspective

#31

Post by peterlk »

> The laboratory work of introductory chemistry is closer to a cookbook than an experiment. Students are given incredibly precise instructions and told to find a certain result. If they fail to find the result, they are made to redo the “experiment”.

This absolutely resonates with me. I am re-learning chemistry now, and this sticks out to me as something that frustrated me as a student. The amount of time that it took to get the experiment right sapped away all my curiosity for what I was actually doing. It's worth mentioning that part of the purpose of the labs is to teach lab techniques. But the cost seems really high to me. I think it teaches people to be good lab techs, but not good scientists.

Re: Why introductory chemistry is boring: a long-term historical perspective

#32

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

papreclip wrote: post #30

Why does chemistry have to be less boring? We are not short on chemists. Take it from someone who left the field Exploding balloons, frozen roses, elephant toothpaste are all very unlike what a chemist will do for a living after they've been lured into the field with this magician's act. Personally I don't think it's a bad thing if the classes are a little dry. It's true chem lab is a bit too much like following cook…

Because life is short? For the legions of students that take introductory chemistry, why shouldn't making the time spent in that class interesting and engaging be a worthy goal in and of itself?

Re: Why introductory chemistry is boring: a long-term historical perspective

#33

Post by gfodor »

thrower123 wrote: post #9
isoprophlex wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making esters (smelly/fruity things) or doing colorful stuff (organic dyes, a bz reaction, etc etc) seems fun and not really dangerous?

That is probably going to appeal to about one half of a typical chemistry class, and leave the other half bored and sullen. My experience of chemistry was that it was very abstract nonsense that was taught to us, which is incredibly sad, when chemistry is all around us all the time, and understanding how it works is invaluable. There are myriad practical examples to investigate. Why do your baking powder biscuits ris…

Yup the same. I don’t remember a single lab, all I remember is the equation balancing which was dictated from above without any explanation as to why it worked or was relevant to reality.

Re: Why introductory chemistry is boring: a long-term historical perspective

#34

Post by Koshkin »

If I were a teacher, I would begin an introductory chemistry course with these words: “Chemistry is the single most important area of knowledge today and for all foreseeable future. (Sorry physics.) This is because the world we live in and we ourselves are built from atoms, and because all future progress, the very evolution of the human being, all rest now on our understanding of the limitless possibilities presented by an ability to control atoms’ behavior. It is chemistry, in its modern sense, that holds the key to the future of the humankind. We may never reach the stars, we may never understand the “true nature” of elementary particles - but that’s OK, because 99% of what’s really important for us in the world we live in can indeed be modeled - and controlled - based on the simple view of the world as a bunch of atoms interacting in certain ways.”

Re: Why introductory chemistry is boring: a long-term historical perspective

#35

Post by jcims »

madengr wrote: post #26
StillBored wrote: post #18

You can replace chemistry with math in his article (and he sort of mentions this in context near the end). I can't remember once being shown the physical problems that drove progress in math until I reached calculus. I remember being bored to tears in algebra 2, a class which was basically being taught as linear algebra + trigonometry. It wasn't until the following summer that I discovered 3d transforms, and a bunch…

What I hated was having to memorize orbitals in freshman chemistry, then after taking modern physics as a junior, the orbitals were deduced easily. Anyway, I hated chemistry, as it seemed all rote memorization. Physics was so much better. It’s also more applicable to RF.

Totally agree. The idea that chemistry is separate from physics is pretty dumb anyway. I'm kinda talking out of my blowhole here, but it seems the reason chemistry and biology are distinguished from physics is that there are a lot of emergent phenomenon that we didn't and in many cases still can't predict from the fundamental physics. But, it's still there. Maybe chemistry should be called molecular dynamics or something like that. Jazz it up a bit.

Also, more explosions and experiments with fart gas.

Re: Why introductory chemistry is boring: a long-term historical perspective

#36

Post by chickenpotpie »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #32
papreclip wrote: post #30

Why does chemistry have to be less boring? We are not short on chemists. Take it from someone who left the field Exploding balloons, frozen roses, elephant toothpaste are all very unlike what a chemist will do for a living after they've been lured into the field with this magician's act. Personally I don't think it's a bad thing if the classes are a little dry. It's true chem lab is a bit too much like following cook…

Because life is short? For the legions of students that take introductory chemistry, why shouldn't making the time spent in that class interesting and engaging be a worthy goal in and of itself?

I don't get why any idea to make life better in any way is met with so much backlash. It seems like people don't want life to be better for the next generation than it was for them.

Re: Why introductory chemistry is boring: a long-term historical perspective

#37

Post by ethhics »

Good article, interesting material to think over.

I don’t think the author’s patronizing attitude towards historical theories is helping his thesis much. He starts off proposing that chemistry in 50 years will be way ahead of chemistry today, and so we need to focus on how evidence from experimentation leads to theories to back them up instead of the converse. Alchemy and humors and the four elements all had some amount of observation of outcomes which lead to those theories, and later on evidence disproved them and a new theory took hold. There’s no need to talk about how silly and wrong those people were—rather, more so just how much more we know about the world.

Additionally there’s a hidden assumption that introductory chemistry should be teaching people what chemists do. I’d venture that a majority of people who take an intro chem class won’t go on to do any experimental chemistry other than baking. Their curriculum specifies that they need the class, and perhaps those theoretical concepts are built upon from a biological, medical, or physical angle. In this case, the important things to know are 1) the theory, and 2) that the theory explains the world as we know it, so that if another theory comes around to explain new evidence we don’t have “new math”-style public backlash of unfamiliarity.

Re: Why introductory chemistry is boring: a long-term historical perspective

#38

Post by jandrese »

jlarocco wrote: post #17

No offense to the author, but it might be poor teachers. My high school chemistry teacher was one of the best I've ever had. She made it very fun, and had a stream of kids taking her classes and ultimately getting 4s and 5s on the AP chemistry test. It was so much fun I spent a semester as her lab assistant.

I took Chemestry 1 and 2 in High School and the classes could not have been more different. Chem 1 was engaging with lab work, real world applications, showing what a reaction meant in real life, etc...

Chem 2 was "memorize some math, do these abstract math problems, take a test, repeat". Zero lab work. No demonstrations. Little discussion about how it relates to the world. Most kids dropped out after that.

Re: Why introductory chemistry is boring: a long-term historical perspective

#39

Post by Koshkin »

jcims wrote: post #35
madengr wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I hated was having to memorize orbitals in freshman chemistry, then after taking modern physics as a junior, the orbitals were deduced easily. Anyway, I hated chemistry, as it seemed all rote memorization. Physics was so much better. It’s also more applicable to RF.

Totally agree. The idea that chemistry is separate from physics is pretty dumb anyway. I'm kinda talking out of my blowhole here, but it seems the reason chemistry and biology are distinguished from physics is that there are a lot of emergent phenomenon that we didn't and in many cases still can't predict from the fundamental physics. But, it's still there. Maybe chemistry should be called molecular dynamics or somet…

This old adage is called ‘reductionism.’

Re: Why introductory chemistry is boring: a long-term historical perspective

#40

Post by jcims »

Koshkin wrote: post #39
jcims wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree. The idea that chemistry is separate from physics is pretty dumb anyway. I'm kinda talking out of my blowhole here, but it seems the reason chemistry and biology are distinguished from physics is that there are a lot of emergent phenomenon that we didn't and in many cases still can't predict from the fundamental physics. But, it's still there. Maybe chemistry should be called molecular dynamics or somet…

This old adage is called ‘reductionism.’

TIL! Thanks
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