Augmenting Primary and Secondary Education with Polymer Science and Engineering

Autor/inn/en	Cersonsky, Rose K.; Foster, Leanna L.; Ahn, Taeyong; Hall, Ryan J.; van der Laan, Harry L.; Scott, Timothy F.
Titel	Augmenting Primary and Secondary Education with Polymer Science and Engineering
Quelle	In: Journal of Chemical Education, 94 (2017) 11, S.1639-1646 (8 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Cersonsky, Rose K.) ORCID (Scott, Timothy F.)
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0021-9584
DOI	10.1021/acs.jchemed.6b00805
Schlagwörter	Chemistry; Introductory Courses; Elementary School Science; Secondary School Science; Science Education; Scientific Concepts; State Standards; Alignment (Education); Science Instruction; Hands on Science; Active Learning; Science Activities; Recycling; Manufacturing; Medicine; Middle School Students; Plastics; Michigan + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Chemie; Einführungskurs; Naturwissenschaftliche Bildung; Teaching of science; Science education; Natural sciences Lessons; Naturwissenschaftlicher Unterricht; Aktives Lernen; Herstellung; Medizin; Middle school; Middle schools; Student; Students; Mittelschule; Mittelstufenschule; Schüler; Schülerin; Plastisches Material
Abstract	Despite the prevalence of polymers in modern everyday life, there is little introduction to the topic in science education throughout primary or secondary schooling in the United States. Of the few states that do include polymer education, this is only found at the high school level, primarily in biology or chemistry. Over the past year, we have developed a graduate-student-run outreach initiative aimed at providing young students with an understanding and appreciation of this class of materials through the interactive teaching of polymer science with audience-appropriate language. Our lessons are developed to align with the Michigan State Education Standards (Michigan is an NGSS Lead State Partner), such that each lesson can be adapted to the vocabulary of the classroom, even across different grade levels and school curricula. Most importantly, each of our lessons has multiple hands-on activities to reiterate and reinforce the concepts taught through active learning. In teaching our graduate student volunteer instructors to research and understand the vocabulary of their audience, we also hope to encourage these future educators toward active and perceptive science teaching, which has been demonstrated to afford greater short- and long-term lesson retention among students. This in effect provides two motivations for our program: (1) making polymers relatable to young students, thereby providing them a foundation prior to their introduction into the curriculum, and (2) teaching the next generation of educators in polymer science how to communicate effectively with their classes. Our program has proven successful in its starting years, and herein we detail the pedagogy and evaluation of the initiative. (As Provided).
Anmerkungen	Division of Chemical Education, Inc and ACS Publications Division of the American Chemical Society. 1155 Sixteenth Street NW, Washington, DC 20036. Tel: 800-227-5558; Tel: 202-872-4600; e-mail: eic@jce.acs.org; Web site: http://pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2020/1/01