Despite the various actions implemented by the government in recent years, including the reform of the National Curriculum, in Peru, there is still a very low interest among high school students to pursue a career in Chemistry or other scientific disciplines, a problem that has a direct impact in the scarce scientific research produced by the country and in its opportunities to face global contemporary challenges. There are several reasons behind this lack of interest among students, the most important of which is the way science is taught in school: a traditional pedagogical approach still characterized by (1) overwhelmed students with a series of disconnected facts and theories, (2) very little exposure of students to essential and meaningful ideas related to Chemistry, or other sciences, and (3) lack of inquiry-based methods (highly recommended by an increasing body of research).<br/>For over 20 years, the Chemistry Section at PUCP has organized the National Chemistry Olympiad. Through this competition, we have heard school teachers from all over the country express their concern about providing their students with interesting experiments that they could do with the very limited resources they have at their schools, in order to increase the motivation of students towards science.<br/>In our university, there have been efforts, for several years now, directed at incorporating courses with a social responsibility component in the curricula. We have recently redesigned the Ethics course to get our students more committed with the main local and global problems that affect our country and to help them recognize themselves as agents of change. With this goal in mind, part of this course (now called Ethics and Social Responsibility in Chemistry) is devoted to an assignment, which consists in designing and putting into practice an inquiry-based lab session that can be carried out with materials that are of easy access in schools in any part of our country, and with the additional challenge of collecting relevant and motivating topics for high school students. Our Chemistry students undertook this project with their professors' guidance, and with the final aim of sharing their work and receiving feedback in a workshop for high school teachers during the second phase of the National Chemistry Olympiad, which takes place in our campus. In this presentation we discuss an assessment of the impact of this outreach project both on our participants and on our students.

Social responsibility as a pedagogical approach for the involvement of undergraduate chemistry students in the compulsory science education challenges: Experience of the Peruvian Chemistry Olympiad

Macromolecular Chemistry: The Second Century

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ACS Spring 2020 National Meeting & Expo

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