General chemistry for freshmen is one of the gateway courses for students interested in focusing their studies within the science disciplines and as such, presents a broad sampling of fundamental concepts within a typically fast-paced, jam-packed syllabus. One of the most significant challenges for instructors who teach this course is to find logical, cumulative connections between topics and when possible, provide pertinent “real-life” context in order to avoid leaving students with the misperception of a disjointed sequence of unrelated concepts and skills. Facilitating this more comprehensive level of understanding is key to helping students build a strong, well-organized conceptual foundation. As a preliminary step toward the future implementation of an over-arching systems thinking approach to this course, I have developed a framework for periodic class discussions during which we relate course concepts to real-world issues/applications relevant to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Specific examples discussed in class as well as the year-long conceptual connections map will be presented.

Providing context to first-year undergraduate chemistry students through discussion of the UN Sustainable Development Goals

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

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.