> all the cool stuff in the world is made of lego pieces (carbon atoms)
Amen. When I introduce organic chemistry, I use the Lego analogy.
I tell the students, "there are zillions of different organic molecules. What's weird is that you only get to 'play' with a small fraction of the periodic table in organic chemistry [C,H,O,N,P,S,F,Cl,Br ...]. So, how do you get 'zillions' of different molecules from a narrow set of elements?"
Then I show them a photo of several 2x2 Legos arranged as 1) a tower, 2) one-way staircase, 3) two-way staircase, 4) "circle"
Organic chem lab is awesome, too. I remember making isoamyl acetate (banana scent) with 30 other students and the whole lab smelled wonderful.
edit: I forgot. I worked with a guy who made a functioning spectrophotometer out of Lego parts and LEDs??. I think he got the idea from a journal devoted to undergraduate chemistry education.
edit2: I didn't read the entire blog post (because...super long), but I agree w/ the parts that I did read. e.g., "[Modern introductory chemistry is] ...sterile chemistry. It’s the equivalent of teaching kids scales before they learn to play a song, or insisting that kids learn grammar before teaching them how to write. It’s chemistry as rote and rules, with no joy to exploration."
A lot of the issue stems from presenting the information to students as if it were "the truth." A lot of what is presented isn't the truth--it's just a reasonable model to explain experimental data. And I think it's beneficial to explain that nuance to students. "This explanation/model works great under most circumstances, but it falls apart over here." I spent a large part of my undergrad years thinking everything I learned was gospel. And I wish my teachers had spent more time discussing model building based on experimental data.
Amen. When I introduce organic chemistry, I use the Lego analogy.
I tell the students, "there are zillions of different organic molecules. What's weird is that you only get to 'play' with a small fraction of the periodic table in organic chemistry [C,H,O,N,P,S,F,Cl,Br ...]. So, how do you get 'zillions' of different molecules from a narrow set of elements?"
Then I show them a photo of several 2x2 Legos arranged as 1) a tower, 2) one-way staircase, 3) two-way staircase, 4) "circle"
Organic chem lab is awesome, too. I remember making isoamyl acetate (banana scent) with 30 other students and the whole lab smelled wonderful.
edit: I forgot. I worked with a guy who made a functioning spectrophotometer out of Lego parts and LEDs??. I think he got the idea from a journal devoted to undergraduate chemistry education.
edit2: I didn't read the entire blog post (because...super long), but I agree w/ the parts that I did read. e.g., "[Modern introductory chemistry is] ...sterile chemistry. It’s the equivalent of teaching kids scales before they learn to play a song, or insisting that kids learn grammar before teaching them how to write. It’s chemistry as rote and rules, with no joy to exploration."
A lot of the issue stems from presenting the information to students as if it were "the truth." A lot of what is presented isn't the truth--it's just a reasonable model to explain experimental data. And I think it's beneficial to explain that nuance to students. "This explanation/model works great under most circumstances, but it falls apart over here." I spent a large part of my undergrad years thinking everything I learned was gospel. And I wish my teachers had spent more time discussing model building based on experimental data.