Chemistry Sets, Past and Present
Great video report from Adam Rogers and Wired Science about the impotent chemistry sets being sold today and the glorious ones of the past.
This was being sent around the office at work as our excitement there grows about the upcoming Maker Media book, Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments
I can’t for the life of me think of any citizen science projects in the realm of chemistry. Can you? If not, does it point us in any direction towards a more universal definition of “citizen science”?
I know the big interest in my Junior High School chemistry class was the possibility of fabricating THC…
LOL — yes, back in the olden days there was more interest in amateur chemistry, for sure!
What about all the Watershed resource monitoring you have here on this site? Much of that is chemistry based, even if it is often classified within environmental science, biology, or something else. I personally think citizen science could to great things for monitoring phosphorus and nitrogen pollution in our streams and lakes…
Excellent point, Eric! You’re correct that water monitoring could be classified as chemistry.
I am trying to put together funding for a project that would build teams of collaborating high school and junior college students to document on film the history of chemistry and the chemical elements in their own geographical areas, especially how the elements are located, mined, refined, manufactured, and used. These teams would travel to local mines, refineries, and museums and interview historians, scientists, and engineers, then edit the footage into a series of 10-15 mintues podcasts. Other teams would work with them to evaluate the scripts and final videos to ensure consistent quality, and each team would have a subject matter expert to monitor accuracy. All the podcasts would be posted centrally and uploaded to iTunes and other aggregate sites. Although this isn’t truly science in that we won’t be analyzing new data, it is an attempt to engage students in the history of science and in technology. If you or your readers know of any grant agencies that have been open to such efforts, I’d appreciate finding out. I am looking at applying to NSF for an Informal Science Education grant among other places. Also if anyone has contacts that can provide information on the efficacy of such programs, it would help to have this info for my grant applications.
This isn’t my first attempt at students using real data. I’ve done work with NASA JPL with Clickworkers and using Mars MOLA data in the classroom, and have presented what my students do at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in 2004. My students also participated in the Mars Exploration Student Data Team program in 2003-04 where we shared data with the rover scientists as soon as it downloaded from Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey orbiters. Our task was to monitor dust opacity and alert the science team in case we saw any dust storms brewing that could threaten the rovers, as one did in Dec. 2003 just before they landed. Calculations for the landings had to be changed because the dust storm went global and warmed up the atmosphere, causing it to expand. Although I currently teach a program in media design technology, I still involve my students in science and the modeling of real data.
David Black
Mountainland Applied Technology College
Orem, Utah