Chemistry Program Promotes Discovery-Based Experiences
A new outreach program at the University of Arizona highlights the connection between chemistry and everyday life for local middle school students.

By Yara Askar, University Communications
Nov. 27, 2013


A new University of Arizona program has an important twofold mission: to train the forthcoming generation of science, technology, engineering and mathematics field-educated professionals while promoting the sciences to middle school students. 

Called Chemistry Discovery, the semester-long course and concurrent outreach program is one in a suite of related programs that the UA College of Science established to meet education and outreach needs in the STEM fields for youth, especially young girls.

"In middle school, that’s when the interest for science for girls seems to take hit. That was an additional incentive for us," said Elisa Tomat, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and founder of Chemistry Discover.

Launched in collaboration with faculty members in the same department, Nancy Horton and John Jewett, students in the course develop workshops for middle school students. One of the main goals of the workshops is to provide the younger students with a discovery-based experience that captures the creativity of the STEM fields. 

The outreach program, held this fall, comprised a series of four workshops that brought more than 100 students from one middle school to the Flandrau Science Center and Planetarium at the UA. Each workshop was led by seven undergraduate students amd featured four stations, each with 15-minute long experiments. By the end of each workshop, the middle school students went through eight experiments in total.

"We want to highlight the concept that chemicals are everywhere and chemistry is the core to the central transformation we see," Tomat said.  

Tomat said the program also is meant to counter negative perceptions about the field, including that it only involves toxic chemicals. For example, one UA student relied on the concept of a pH indicator and experimented with the chemistry of red cabbage juice. The juice contains a compound that is sensitive to pH and will change color in different conditions going from acidic, to neutral and then to basic. 

"Instead of preparing solutions in a lab with the acids and bases that come out of bottles, we chose to take solutions from our fridges and pantries and illustrate the fact that we have chemicals everywhere," Tomat said. "There are chemicals in our fridges all the time."

The UA students spends the first half of the fall semester brainstorming experimental activities that facilitate chemistry learning. The second half of the semester was spent practicing the mechanics of the experiments and developing an appropriate language to use with middle school students without being too technical, Tomat said.

"We are always aware of the fine line between giving a message that is certainly understandable for our audience but also making sure that the message is accurate. We do not want to compromise on accuracy in order to make it simple," Tomat said.

The process of simplifying the materials is easy enough for Aaron Brussels, a UA Honors College student, but it’s harder to convey it in the right way without oversimplifying, he said.

"You want to make sure they understand that you are still doing chemistry and there is real science behind it, but you have to make it accessible," said Brussels, a pre-physiology sophomore.

This fall, students from Mansfeld Middle School in Tucson, Ariz., engaged in the observing and conducting experimental activities. 

"We want to develop educational resources for middle school students so that they have a chance to conduct experimental activities related with what they’re learning in their middle school classes," Tomat said. "We want to make sure their introduction to chemistry is not just textbooks but it is observed also in a variety of contexts."

The educational objective of integrating an approach to science in an interactive setting with middle school students will help provide foundational knowledge and useful information for later in the semester, said Budd Turner, an eighth-grade science teacher at Mansfeld.

These workshops have provided the middle school students with a better understanding and approach to science than just memorizing a lot of unrelated facts and seeing how a lot of things interrelate in science, Turner said.

For many of the students it is an exciting experience, Turner said, because it gives them the chance to come to a college setting and imagine they are college students. In return, it gets the students thinking about higher education at a younger age.

At the same time, UA students in the course strengthen their chemistry knowledge and improve their communication and presentation skills in an interactive teaching and learning experience, Tomat said. The workshops allow them to develop an awareness of the potential impact of their role as mentors and ambassadors for chemical education, she added. 

"It is really something for students who are enthusiastic about science and really want to share that with others, who want younger students to see what they see in science," Tomat said.

"There are a lot of education principles that come into this class," she said. "This is a unique effort the UA is collectively displaying in terms of the integration of outreach effort with the course listing. I think it's really valuable."

La Monica Everett-Haynes contributed to this article.

Extra info

The UA is poised to help meet state and national demands in the STEM fields. Other STEM-related programs, units and initiatives exist at the UA include:

 

  • Biosphere 2
  • The BIO5 Institute
  • The UA STEM Learning Center
  • The 100Kin10 (the UA is a member of the national STEM initiative)
  • Women in Science and Engineering
  • UA Science: Flandrau
  • The Minority Access to Research Careers Program
  • i-STEM at the Southwest Institute for Research on Women
  • The Keep Engaging Youth in Science (KEYS) Program
  • The Undergraduate Biology Research Program
  • The College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Cooperative Extension
  • Insect Discovery, Physics Discover, Sonoran Desert Discovery and Marine Discovery programs

Share

Resources for the media

Elisa Tomat

UA Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry

520-626-5714

tomat@email.arizona.edu