"Science is thrilling - except in our schools"
http://www.johannhari.com/archive/article.php?id=1334

I wish they covered organic in my school, I was getting really bored with the standard alkali metal in water, thermite, titration *** before long.

Putting a carrier bag full of offal in the fume cupboard and reversing the motor on the fans the day before half term was a laugh though

I can't say I remember doing ANY science at primary school at all... except once the teacher found a dead parrot, and stuck it in a corner of the playground under some wire netting and we insected it every few days to watch it decompose.   Certainly there were never any demonstrations or experiments like this bloke does: http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2008...256853.htm

For the record, my primary schooling consisted entirely of very basic mathematics, basic reading and writing, tracing maps out of atlases, lots of religion including spending one morning a week polishing pews in the church, and copying meaningless paragraphs about history off the blackboard - the only bit of those I remember was that apparently the Battle of Gallipoli "is considered a victory because we didn't give up."  Well, that justifies seven thousand five hundred dead Aussies, doesn't it? (And if any former teachers from St Marys Primary School, Rockhampton, happen to read this and feel ashamed, good.)

I totally relate to the comment in the article about lack of field trips and demos - I LOVE that sort of thing, but we hardly ever did it.  And when we DID, it was stuff like titration which I was crap at because I just don't have the mental or manual precision to use the fiddly gear.  It was more about being able to use the toys than actually being shown how something worked or what it all meant.  It was very rote based... memorising lots of stuff.  Why?  We're not ancient druids!

Plus, no teacher ever found a way to teach me how to use formulae.  We were given a cheat sheet during tests, so I didn't even have to memorise them... I just couldn't work out how to apply them.  At all.  Ever.  We had these tests where you had five problems and two hours to solve them, and I never even made a start on any of them... handed in either a blank paper or something totally meaningless.  yet I was made to sit these tests every time, despite that.  Methinks it wasn't just the science that was done by rote, but the teaching too.

I meant to add a poll to this thread but I seem to have lost it. Never mind.

Here's a little tale of scientific illiteracy... Our workplace has recently put food waste bins (for composting) on all floors, labelled as "organic waste bins". This prompted some discussion on the newsgroups as to whether you could compost biodegradable plastic food wrappers, such as the kind Sainsbury's package their organic fruit & veg in. Someone wrote, "Plastic polymers don't sound very organic to me", and I replied "Anyone who's done A-level chemistry would have to disagree with you"!

Ah, alkali metals ... There was a bit in my Year 9 chemistry textbook that said "I'm sure if you came across a sample of rubidium, caesium or francium you would keep it well clear of water". And I remember thinking: "No way - I'd throw it right in and watch it go BOOM!" Bwa-ha-ha.

Doing titration is the bane of my existence. I've always been a major biology geek.

ahh. titration, can do it in my sleep. So easy. Probably stems from being a mechanic. Yes and I am familiar with biology as well. But chem is mine. As for formula, if I have to show the reasoning to a correct answer, that can be a problem, even though the answer is correct.

Titration is easy... That's the problem, in fact - it's too easy! Doing it for three hours straight is absolute torture to me. It's just like "Drip. Change? Drip. Change? Drip. Change? Drip. Change?". And then there are the times when you accidentally open the buret too much and a bunch of the titrant goes in and makes the solution change, and all you can do is yell obscenities and start over.

I used to have problems showing the reasoning behind my answers when it came to stoichiometry, even though they tended to be correct. In my last chemistry class, though, the my professor (she was seemingly autistic too) taught me a way to do it so that I actually understand what I'm doing and why I'm doing it, instead of just doing it. That has helped me so much... I used to be absolutely horrible at stoichiometry hated every aspect of it, but now I am pretty good at it and don't hate it as much.

It does help if the technique is taught right in the first place. From my stint at preservice teaching, I did not see any chem teacher using a simple and reliable method. I taught some and those I taught won the overall titration challenge statewide.

There is something satisfying getting almost identical results each time, maybe its an aspies thing. Stoiciometry is easy again if taught correctly in the first place. Again I didn't see this being taught correctly.

My conclusion, it probably takes someone with aspies and a chemistry bent to teach basic chemistry properly in the first place. It is an exacting science. I do enjoy most aspects of chemistry except for essay type questions devoid of equations and symbols.

I do have another year to go in my chemistry degree. Then I will do my masters /PhD. At the least it keeps me clear of developing some less than welcome obsession (from families viewpoint) which I can easily "fall" into.

I took AP Chemistry (somewhat equivalent to A-level chemistry, I believe), and it was neat, with the demonstrations (both on computer and IRL) and really was good for me to learn it (unfortunately I had to quit the second semester, because of failing history class and un-addressed eyesight problems).

Einstein once said of physics instruction (paraphrasing here): "The first two weeks should consist only of what is interesting to see."

I wholeheartedly agree. I recommend for anyone who's in a physics class that ISN'T having much demonstrations, to check out MIT OpenCourseWare's introductory physics course video (I think it's 8.01). Professor Walter Lewin, I believe. He has very interesting demonstrations, and even if it's a more advanced level than what you're studying in class, the demonstrations alone are more than worth it (especially since it's free!). But if you have background/experience with advanced high school physics or college physics, it should be pretty easy to follow.

The chemistry book I used was called Chemistry, by Raymond Chang. I like the eighth edition, but haven't used other editions, so I don't know how the pictures or other figures might differ for other editions.

I also like the book used for AP Biology at our school, though I don't know how I'd do in biology (it's not going to be my major, so I'm not going to really find out how I'd do at advanced biology study). I liked the section on the nervous system the best (though I'm bad with acquiring and retaining new vocabulary, which is probably why I choose physics more than chemistry, as I taught myself tons of physics vocabulary prior to age 13, and words learned after that have a lot more trouble sticking unless triggered (such as titration - I am well aware of what titration is and procedures and stuff, but until the post mentioning "Drip? no change. Drip? No, no change" I couldn't make the connection of the word to the concept.

My problem in high school chemistry was that two years earlier, I had read AP Chemistry books and materials, and the year started with a review of 8th grade physical science! My main difficulty was that it was going slowly, and in the whole year I didn't learn much (I had covered the concepts taught during the year, both through school and self-taught, in about a week) other than the odd fact here or there. Some things like this I wish you could know about in advance and just skip the course (much like I wish I could've skipped U.S. history and just have taken it at the community college, as I ended up doing anyway - I had to give up French III to take that history class that I just ended up failing and having to repeat anyway).

earth Monkey. That Raymond Chang book for chemistry is about the best I have come across. Its strongly recommended by me. The best part it has a proper style of example questions.

The problem with school learning is the almost universal policy of no child left behind. Read dumbing down. No doubt very irritating if you are well ahead of your peers.

A few tips on titration for those who have yet to do it. Always put your hand behind the burrette and use your fingers for fine control around the front.

Then, without smashing the tip swirl the conical fask while allowing the titrant to run. Once a slight colour change is seen (a patch), back right off, then allow drip by drip till first stable colour. wash off tip with deionized. Next.

Yeah, you can't better serve students' individual learning needs by applying a standard approach aimed at the majority on everyone, or apply what you think will work for the struggling students and apply it to everyone. You have to be able to adjust things, keep it interesting and understandable for both those students who struggle and those who find it easy. For students who are really a lot quicker at understanding, there should be supplemental reading or activities or something to do.

Not being very clear here, but basic point - teaching at a very high level and expecting everyone to automatically understand and keep up, isn't a good approach for teaching a whole class, and likewise teaching at a very basic and slow level and pace and expecting everyone to automatically keep interest are both ineffective strategies.

You need to have an environment where students can ask questions and clarification, in variety of ways and times and places, and where students can go further ahead or review things they still have trouble with without it being dismissed as "oh, we already covered that; it's irrelevant". Of course, the amount of in-class time devoted to review can be lessened in the advanced courses that are not requirements, and even in basic classes, there should be more opportunities for advanced students to go ahead in their studies.

I was always very slow in chemistry labs, for reasons involving language, understanding and following instructions, keeping focused attention (both too focused and not enough), and fine motor things, which I can be clumsy with. Most science labs I needed extra time on, though this was lessened by having the instructions and procedure ahead of time (though I still took longer than average, but at least I wouldn't usually need to work on it outside of classtime). But, provided that I had the timeframe to work, and that I either worked solo or had partners who were actually interested in co-operating instead of texting or something, I usually did pretty good work, though I am definitely better with concepts and math, than with working in the lab. It was a lot different though when I took my Astronomy Lab class.

Here's another tip: if you screw up, copy answers from another group and change them slightly to avoid detection.  If the solution changes colour after the first drop, the blasted science 10 class that prepares the NaOH screwed up again (this happened to me once.  Drip, no change.  Drip, instantly purple dammit!)

Biology is by far my favourite science.  Dissections were great; mostly my partners took the angle 'ew it's dead I'm not touching it' so I got to tear through some serious frogs and fetal pigs (mine was borderline not-so-fetal--actually had hair on it) all on my own.  And that one cow eyeball.  Cows have really tough eyeballs, for the record, you have to really stab to get through them with a scalpel.

And in elementary school I got a lot of field trips to the Saskatchewan Science Center in Regina, which is a three story building full of scientific marvels, and also the museum in Regina had a scale model animatronic T-rex that roared at you when you walked in.  Damn that was cool.  And scary.  But really cool.

In conclusion, science is really awesome, 2,3-dimethyl-5-ethylhex-1-ine notwithstanding.

Actually, naming organic compounds is neat.  I love how you can put together the compound just from the name.

Your post pretty much sums up my secondary and some of my tertiary science education experience. Only more mass spectrometry and less Saskatchewan.

You can never get enough Saskatchewan.  It's flat and rectangular and hard to spell and full of wheat.  And they put 'The Land of Living Skies' on their license plates, which is honestly the coolest thing I've ever seen written on a license plate.

My first spesh school, was mostly kanner-type autism specialist, and the most 'interesting' thing we ever did, once, was the reaction of iodine solution with starch, watched done by the teacher at the front of the class. Yeech, by the time they showed us that, I'd done it myself years ago

Second was more fun, thermite demos, that sort of stuff, at least the two science teachers were interested in their job, we didn't even HAVE a science teacher/lab at the other school, but still, they stuck to inorg. chem, touched briefly on alkanes/alkynes/olefins and left it after that.

I WISH my last school had had a mass spec or NMR machine, once I get a decent job, a decent GC and a ton of manuals for it is one of the first things on my list to buy, chemistry is actually one  of my 'special interests' and believe me, when one pulls a huge variety of  glycosides, alkaloids, terpenes and the like from a single mixed solvent extraction, and has to rely on oldschool analytical chemical methods for getting an ID on one or more parts, you can easily spend all day or more buggering about just seperating them, let alone actually doing any analysis

Proton NMR would be better, bloody complicated from my understanding of it, and damned expensive :/

Any more science geeks here? (or is that like asking the pope if there are any more catholics in the vatican)