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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

#61

Post by criddell »

esoterica wrote: post #53
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…

Boring is subjective. Many people find ”practical applications” boring but pure math fun. They would find your proposed curriculum deeply uninteresting.

If a teacher takes the practical applications angle, you can always ignore that part and just do the math.

The reverse is more difficult. My linear algebra teacher didn't ground the work in anything and as student I had no idea that the vectors and matrices could be used for, say, computer graphics.

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

#62

Post by maestrokuro »

I had to get up to date with general and physical chemistry over the last few months for my graduate studies; my background is in theoretical physics and I've not taken any chemistry above GCSEs. I spent my nights working through a couple of chemistry textbooks and man, I loved it. It's an exquisitely complex subject: I wouldn't call it elegant, but there's an intrinsic beauty in the sheer practicality of it.

A lot of very, very smart people I've spoken to - most of whom had taken chemistry for A-levels - have found it odd that I've enjoyed it so much. Their memories of the subject are in complete contradiction to mine (literally speaking, because they associate chemistry with memorisation).

The difference, I think, is the fact that my introduction to chemistry came after I became competent with quantum and statistical physics: the fundamental topics of physics from which chemistry as a whole springs forth. Now that I think about it, the introductory chemistry book I studied at first would have been unbearably frustrating if all I had to work with were constitutive relations and hand-wavy arguments.

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

#63

Post by mathattack »

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…

I concur. I hated math until calc, when it explained physics. Now I love math. But most folks never get there - it’s taught too removed from both the application and the beauty. Looking at my children’s teachers, some make it come alive, some struggle with large classes, and some just don’t know the material well themselves.

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

#64

Post by izacus »

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.’

And the obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/435/

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

#65

Post by thereisnospork »

oefrha wrote: post #59
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…

> I can't remember once being shown the physical problems that drove progress in math until I reached calculus. Progress in math often (or usually) isn’t driven by physical problems, so there’s that. Just like progress in physics often (or usually) isn’t driven by “real world” problems. Discoveries are often made before applications are found. As a concrete example, number theory is an incredibly profound and fruitfu…

>Progress in math often (or usually) isn’t driven by physical problems, so there’s that. Just like progress in physics often (or usually) isn’t driven by “real world” problems. Discoveries are often made before applications are found.

The use of math however is driven by physical problems for most people; teaching people how to use math (or physics, or chemistry) ought to be the point of most non-grad level courses? Anecdotally, I got more out of my math classes that were through the lens of either a solver e.g. matlab/mathmatica/R or a 'practical' subject like quantum chemistry.

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

#66

Post by mncharity »

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…

> Why does chemistry have to be less boring? We are not short on chemists.

Years back, I saw a talk suggesting there was no general shortage of STEM employees in the US, only a need for more programmers, and for science PhD's to more easily shift research focus. Though I've heard it is a bottleneck elsewhere (eg, for Brazil spinning up an indigenous petroleum industry).

But there's also an issue of quality. US chemistry education research describes precollege chemistry education content using adjectives like incoherent, and as leaving both teachers and students steeped in misconceptions. And available STEM competence is a training challenge in many US job areas.

Less boring needn't be less dysfunctional, but less dysfunctional might be less boring.

So when I was working on education content, my line was "it's not clear there's a need, but if it's going to be widely taught anyway, it might as well be taught less wretchedly".

There's also a question, that were science education to transformatively improve, whether a now safety-focused US society would actually want a population with widespread hands-on science skill. But perhaps intensifying surveillance might bridge that gap.

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

#67

Post by ghaff »

unzadunza wrote: post #12
blueadept111 wrote: post #4

Organic chemistry is the bomb. I was bored to death with inorganic chemistry, maybe because of the way it was presented, but organic chemistry seemed like suddenly being shown that all the cool stuff in the world is made of lego pieces (carbon atoms), and there's a manual for how to put them together in different ways. I wasn't exposed to it until university, but I always thought the material would make a good intro…

I think it all comes down to the instructor. I took Organic the 1st time with a semi-famous professor who didn't want to be there and just sat next to an overhead projector and wrote down formulas for us to memorize. Boring! I squeaked by with a C. When I had to take it again for grad school because I failed the organic part of the entrance exams (imagine that) I had a completely different experience. The instructor…

Organic and inorganic chemistry are almost two separate subjects. I also took organic freshman year in college with a professor who I think probably ended up in the running for a Nobel Prize. I'm not sure he was particularly bad but it was a large lecture class, I hated organic and it was one of the first subjects I ever didn't really grok at some level, and actually somewhat changed majors because of it.

Inorganic on the other hand. I ended up getting a grad degree in Material Science which is closely related to aspects of solid state chemistry--so, yes, I liked aspects of chemistry. Just not organic.

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

#68

Post by ghaff »

ethhics wrote: post #37

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 amo…

There's actually an interesting online Harvard course that uses cooking to illustrate (especially) chemistry principles. [1] The course isn't perfect but it's an interesting take on using something that many people do day-to-day as a way to introduce scientific concepts.

[1] https://online-learning.harvard.edu/course/science-and-cooki...

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

#69

Post by japhyr »

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…

I studied physics in undergrad many years ago, and it's been a long time since I used higher level math on a regular basis. I just picked up Mathematics: Its Content, Methods, and Meaning, on the recommendation of someone here. It's over 1000 pages, so it's going to be a lifetime reading project for me, but it's been wonderful to start reading. The first part of the book traces the earliest origins of math, and everything was grounded in real-world physical problems.

I've been a high school math teacher for most of my life, and I have deep frustrations with how removed from meaning math is presented to most students. Just because the teacher knows and states the possible relevance doesn't mean students should be expected to take the relevance at face value.

I was mostly focused on teaching algebra 1 classes, which is why I didn't use higher math all that often. But my understanding of higher math grounded my teaching of lower level concepts all the time, and I often spoke of higher level concepts with my students to help demystify math. My 8yo son loves math for now, and the moment school makes math meaningless to him I am planning to find some way to intervene.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0486409163/

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