Electrochemistry is an aspect of chemistry that has an ever-increasing role in the life of the general public, whose electronic devices require a greater need for energy supply. As technology advances, educational methods need to maintain pace so that the populace has a sound scientific understanding to spark areas of research interest or base consumer decisions upon. We developed a 4-hour electrochemistry laboratory module for use in general chemistry or higher courses, which intends to address the “black box” of battery energy storage and enhance connections between chemistry content, principles of green chemistry, and the students’ daily lives. This is accomplished through the students solving problems with chemistry knowledge while also considering the benefits, costs and risks of their decisions. Results from a comparison study in which sixteen lab sections were randomly assigned to either the traditional electrochemistry lab (eight sections, 77 students participated in optional survey) or our green context-based lab (eight sections, 54 students participated in optional survey) demonstrated positive impacts in all areas of student self-report measured. Significant positive impacts included better understanding of the personal relevance of electrochemistry, how an electrochemical cell works, effective use of time in the lab, and enhanced interest. Teaching assistants also reported that students were more engaged and challenged in the green context-based lab. Students who learned in the green context-based lab outperformed those in the traditional lab in post-lab problems that were the same for both samples, and students who did the green context-based lab learned to apply principles of green chemistry that students in the traditional lab did not. These results demonstrate that context-based learning can enrich students’ views of chemistry and students’ ability to use green chemistry principles in decision making by providing opportunities to practice applying chemistry concepts and reasoning in solving real-world problems.

Green context-based electrochemistry lab for general chemistry

255th National Meeting (2018)

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