The American Chemical Society has many precollege
education programs that do not necessarily enlist the
efforts of volunteer scientists. Three that focus on
curriculum development and associated teacher-training
are the following:
FACETS (Foundations and Challenges to Encourage
Technology-based Science). The 24 interdisciplinary
modules of FACETS allow middle-school students to engage
in exploring the science that is of immediate interest
and relevance to them. Each module is designed for about
three weeks of instruction, during which students employ
a set of 10 problem-solving strategies to explore an
issue, investigate a problem, or design and test a
product. The ACS provides teacher training for the
program. The materials are published by Kendall-Hunt.
As FACETS students work on the modules, scientists are
available to them as resources. Students can contact
scientists in their community and in local institutions
of higher learning for information, guidance on projects,
and possible visits to classrooms. Classroom visits give
participating scientists valuable insights into the
instructional approach represented by FACETS and give the
students and teachers valuable resources.
For more information on the program, contact
Ann Benbow at the ACS
Phone: 202-872-6179
e-mail: a_benbow@acs.org.
SciTeKS (Science Technology: Knowledge and Skills).
SciTeKS is a "tech prep" program (i.e. a
program to prepare students in grades 11 and 12 either to
enroll in a community college technician program or to
seek immediate employment in industry as a technician).
It is current under development by the ACS's Education
Division, with funding from the National Science
Foundation. There are currently eight SciTeKS modules
(the total program will have 12), designed to allow
students to investigate industry-based problems that
science technicians face in a typical work day, primarily
in the chemical, biological, and geoscience industries.
Each module consists of a print piece for both
students and teachers, an introductory video, and a
multimedia CD-ROM. The video takes students on a tour of
the particular industry featured in the module and guides
them through the whole industrial process: input -->
processing --> output.
The concepts, processes, and skills upon which each of
the modules is based are taken from National
Science Education Standards , The
Voluntary Standards for Chemical Process Technicians, Benchmarks
for Science Literacy, and Skill Standards for
the Bioscience Industry. Two of the modules will be
ready for pilot testing in the spring of 1997; the
remainder are to be piloted during the academic year
1997-1998.
For more information about the SciTeKS program,
contact
Ann Benbow
Phone: 202-872-6179
e-mail: a_benbow@acs.org
Chemistry in the Community (ChemCom). ChemCom
is a year-long course that introduces high-school
students to chemistry. Each of ChemCom's eight units
centers on a chemistry-related societal issue that serves
as the basis for introducing the chemistry needed to
understand and analyze the problem. ChemCom is considered
a laboratory science for the purposes of high-school
graduation requirements and college admissions.
The main ChemCom topics are "Supplying Our Water
Needs," "Conserving Chemical Resources,"
"Petroleum: To Build or to Burn?"
"Understanding Foods," " Nuclear Chemistry
in Our World," " Chemistry, Air, and
Climate," "Chemistry and Health," and
"The Chemical Industry: Promise and Challenge."
The ChemCom program consists of a textbook, a
teacher's guide, a lab manual, a laser disk, and a
program for training teachers. Developed by the ACS with
NSF funding, ChemCom was written by teams of high school,
college, and university teachers with the assistance of
chemists from industry and government. Every one of the
ChemCom units points to specific opportunities for
scientists to come into the classroom and talk about
their work.
Each summer, the ACS sponsors five-day teacher
training workshops to prepare new ChemCom teachers. These
workshops are held at colleges and universities
nationwide and conducted by three-person teams of master
high-school teachers who themselves were trained in an
earlier phase of the ChemCom program. Participants become
familiar with the philosophy, goals, rationale,
teaching/learning strategies, course content, classroom
management models, and specific instructional activities
that constitute the ChemCom course.
Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company published the first
edition of ChemCom in 1988 and the third edition in the
spring of 1997.
For more information about the ChemCom program,
contact John Krikau Phone: 202-872-6383 e-mail:
j_krikau@acs.org
