I have just returned from Japan. I had been invited by Professor Kazuko Ogino (seated centre) along with Professor Jorge Ibanez from Mexico, Professor Supawan Tantayanon from Thailand (see Feb 2016 blog), Dr Abdulazziz Alnajarr from Kuwait and Dr Marie Dutoit from South Africa, who pioneered the MyLab chemistry kit. There were invited Japanese University lecturers and schoolteachers from Japan as well. What we had in common was a passion for the microscale approach to chemistry in both education and research.
Yes it was the time of the great divide in my school science education when the physics teacher moved from teaching direct current (DC - which seemed to be going somewhere) to alternating current (AC - which seemed to be going nowhere 50 times a second).
The only time the school chemist, other than putting the plug in the mains, has to use AC electricity is during the study of the conductivity of solutions, a topic long gone from the UK A-level syllabus. Physicists talk of electrical resistance and the chemist of electrical conductivity – great cooperation there. “No”. “Boring lesson then”.
“Not in the least, chemistry is never boring”. “Sir is being daft again”. Of course some students think that if they now have carte blanche to burn all their possessions, such as plastic pens, to see what happens, ie, they can mess about. That is why they like it. The Bunsen burner has a powerful and expensive hold in UK practical chemistry. Its presence in practical work ultimately defines the set out of the school laboratory. |