Lifelong Learning Programme

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TEACHING RESOURCES INFORMATION

TITLE OF TEACHING RESOURCE
Chemistry for Life
IMAGE
WEBSITE OF THE PRODUCT
TYPE OF PRODUCT
Web Site/Portal
LEVEL OF CHEMISTRY KNOWLEDGE
Basic, Medium
PEDAGOGICAL APPROACH
Cooperative learning, Experiential learning
SUBJECT AREA
Fundamental Chemistry, Life Chemistry, History of Chemistry
TARGET GROUP LEVEL
Primary School, Lower Secondary School
LANGUAGE/S OF TEACHING RESOURCES
English
TUTORIAL SUPPORT
No
DESCRIPTION
Prerequisites:
The educational material available at this site is available freely and does not require any special program for viewing.
The site does not require specific skills because the subjects are firstly discussed at a basic level

Contents:

CHEMistry for Life is a joint initiative mounted by 16 European science centres and technology museums under the umbrella of ECSITE and CISU (Chemical Industry Association for Scientific Understanding), a collaboration within the European Chemical Industry Council CEFIC.


The idea behind CHEMistry for Life was that there should be a joint campaign mounted across Europe by all the science centres and technology museums, aiming to offset the negative image of chemistry in the public eye. A more accurate and more objective assessment of the opportunities and risks presented by chemistry is to be achieved through refurbishing and restyling of museum chemistry sections, supported by experiments, demonstrations and the hands-on involvement of visitors themselves. The appropriate media and measures are being developed and financed by the museums which have signed up for the CHEMistry for Life project and by the chemical industry.

ew chemistry sections at the science centres and technology museums can only be successful if they are designed in line with the latest insights into educational museum presentation and if they include attractive and imaginative hands-on and multimedia features. But the development of interactive systems is expensive and time-consuming.
On its own, an individual museum can seldom afford very many of these features.
CHEMistry for Life aims to have worked together to develop approx. 50 innovative, original didactic displays by the year 2000. Development and production of prototypes is to be financed with the help of the chemical industry and the European Commission. The individual museums will only have to meet the costs of production and adaptation of their own selected copies. Apart from cost savings, CHEMistry for Life guarantees a consistent approach and high quality in the presentation of chemistry by European museums.

In the web of this project we can find a virtual gallery, online experiments and view exciting films about the global themes of chemistry. And for the teachers there is additional information related to each project of the Virtual Gallery to be used in teaching situations.
Aims:

- To develop and facilitate ICT-based learning activities in the context of teaching chemistry
- To develop an appreciation of how science has contributed to the historical and cultural development of our society.
-To change the attitudes of citizens towards science, especially chemistry.

Use in classroom:
This website can be used in classroom but to get the maximum efficiency can be used as a complement to visit the science museum in your city or region.
COMMENTS
Points of strength:
-An attractive design.
-It adapts to any level of education.
-It is an ideal complement to a visit to a science museum.
- Aditional information is very useful for teachers.

Points of weakness:
The website is dedicated to the dissemination of science and is missing a tutorial of content for teachers, and refer to the level of each of the site's content.

Scientific reliability:
Good.

Pedagogic value:
High pedagogic value because is a no formal teaching resource, that can be use in formal enviroments. It is an example of the Rocard´s Report recomendation to promote and disseminate the science in the local community and the participation of non formal teaching in science spreading.
NAME OF THE REVIEWING ORGANISATION
CECE

Comments about this Publication

Your comments are welcome


Date: 2012.10.04

Posted by Özlem AFACAN (Turkey)

Message: "Chemistry For Life" is a site in which emphasis is placed on the importance of chemistry in different fields of human activities.Everybody can get beneficial works or studies for their life from this website.Because containing the applicable experiments part shows that we can do this experiments easily with our childs or with collegues.But on the other hand puting some videos could be more useful for the chemistry researchers and students. This resource can also be useful for the teachers, who could use this site as a reference point for the development of various classroom discussions highlighting the importance of chemistry in our daily life.
The proposed experiments can actually bring chemistry at home and motivate people to engage themselves in behaving as little scientists. This teaching resource is designed in a user-friendly manner in order to make chemistry more appealing to the average student.

Date: 2012.10.03

Posted by Elif Tuğçe KARACA (Turkey)

Message:
First of all I think it’s not useful for primary school students, the web site an attractive design but it is complex for studens in primary school and also lower secondary school students. The web site has a good background for the experimental chemistry but when the topic is experiment, I think the best way is doing it in labrotories with the other students and the teacher. The idea of the web site is very creative and the content is powerful but I think it can not match the children age range.

The web site can not increase the students interest because I think students will find this site unnecessary, because there are too much things, it seems that the site lost its focus and add whatever they find related to the content.

In these days computer games and web site designs are very attractive, but this web site is not interesting for children. After all this can not be an innovative approach, but it can be a good online or published source for secondary students except the lower secondary ones.

Date: 2012.09.27

Posted by Grace Kenny (Ireland)

Message:  Is the teaching resource described useful for you?
Why?

The website Chemistry for Life is not really suitable for use at primary level. The content and concepts are quite advanced and do not fall within the strands of the primary school science curriculum. I can see that some parts of website could be used by secondary school teachers – the virtual experiments were nice. They were cartoon clips that talked through the various steps of some interesting experiments. Unfortunately there were only eight of these in total.
The remainder of the website was disappointing. There were articles and videos that were difficult to access or not available, and the virtual gallery section consisted only of some poor photographs of science centre and museum exhibitions and some information, but it was in no way interactive and did not differ greatly for reading an up to date textbook.



 Do you think it can increase the students’ interest toward chemistry?
Why?


While the virtual experiments could be used in the classroom, I do not think the remainder of the website would work to increase student’s motivation towards chemistry. I felt the website was dull and uninteresting, and it was not interactive. While the topics presented in the virtual gallery were interesting, they were not presented in a way that would be attractive for young science students – poor photographs, and a lack of colour and interactivity.


 Do you think it can help the students to understand better and faster?
Why?

I failed to see how this website would help students to understand better or faster. While the virtual experiments were nice, they could all be performed at some level within the secondary school science lab, and this be far better than just watching them on the website.


 Do you think it propose an innovative didactical approach?

Why?

I do not think that the website proposed an innovative didactical approach. Rather it in some ways was similar to reading content in a textbook, the only difference being that the content reflected what was happening in science centres and museums. So assuming that the displays and exhibitions changed regularly, and this change was updated in the website, then the content was based on up to date advances in chemistry. Unfortunately while this information could be used to make modern chemistry attractive and fun, the website did not present the content in a fun or interactive way, thus in my opinion, failing to achieve its goal to attract young people to the science of chemistry.

National Reports on successful experiences to promote lifelong learning for chemistry The national reports on chemistry successful experiences to promote lifelong learning for chemistry are now available on the related section of the project portal. The reports presents examples of successful experiences in the partner countries and the results of testing of ICT resources with science teachers.

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