CHED 1699

Communicating the chemistry behind issues

Bhawani Venkataraman, venkatab@newschool.edu, Science Technology and Society, Eugene Lang College, The New School, 65W 11th Street, New York, NY 10011
This paper presents examples from undergraduate courses designed to teach chemistry in context with issues that engage students, such as the environment, chemical origins of life, and nanotechnology. The courses focus around a topic to stimulate interest in understanding fundamental chemical principles. The topic becomes the focus of the course with the chemistry taught to advance understanding of the topic. The courses make use of computational molecular modeling, problem-solving activities, data from the scientific literature, scientific visualizations, policy briefs, and books to assist in making the connections between the fundamental chemistry and the engaging topic.