The ability to continue sustainable living on this planet depends on our ability to critically analyze benefits, costs and risks (BCR) of the products that we generate and the feedstocks that we use, as well as to appropriately reason about the outcomes of our decisions. The ultimate intent of our research is to uncover intermediate understandings through which learning can be deliberately directed. In this work, we present the early stage development of a learning progression that describes the evolution of implicit assumptions along core progress variables that account for relative degrees of sophistication in reasoning as students advance in their education as chemists. Qualitative analysis of pilot study data from surveys and interviews obtained from undergraduate students at two universities in the United States has uncovered domain-general and chemistry-specific progress variables. The product of this work informs our larger learning progression on chemical design.

Developing a learning progression on benefits, costs, and risks in chemical design

245th National Meeting (2013)

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