Materials in the Undergraduate Chemistry Curriculum
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ential science majors are indeed there, but they are being lost due to their first expériences, which are usually in gênerai chemistry and calculus, and a lesser number in biology and physics. It is therefore imperative that thèse courses encourage students rather than kill their enthusiasm. As recently pointed out in an NSF report,2 if we continue teaching chemistry the way it has been done for the last 50 years, then "chemistry, like Latin, soon could be regarded as a dead language." General chemistry courses do not hâve to be "abstract and theoretical. Such courses hâve failed to relate the importance of chemistry to current topics such as superconductors, advanced polymers, and microelectronics, and thus are ineffective at counteracting the association of chemistry and chemists with toxic waste, pesticide residues, and ecological hazards. As such, they teach facts but seldom inspire fascination."3 At the State University of New York (SUNY) at Binghamton, we recently attempted to give equal weight to solids in a one-semester gênerai chemistry course that is taken by well-prepared freshmen who are potential science and engineering majors. Our goal was to improve the course and curriculum through its diversity and by exemplify-
Table 1. Students Planning to Major in Science and Engineering.
On leaving high school After the freshman year Graduating with a BA/BS in S & E
No. of Students
Year
590,000 340,000 206,000
1979 1980 1984
ing the key principles of chemistry through what the student will see as more practical examples. At the same time, we wanted to remove both the myth that "chemistry = chemicals" and the curriculum's historic bias toward small molécule chemistry, which is out of touch with current opportunities for chemists in research, éducation, and technology. Also, our long-term hope is that by making gênerai chemistry more interesting and relevant at the collège level, then maybe through textbooks and word of mouth that increased level of excitement will filter back to the high school level, and we will hâve additional converts. Therefore we felt it was critical to introduce into the course new science that the student would not hâve leamed in high school (it is less important what the science is than that it be new and différent). In our case, that new science was materials chemistry, both inorganic and organic. Others hâve used différent vehicles and taken this approach even further. For instance, at the University of Michigan, the better prepared students take a two-semester course titled "Structure and Reactivity," in which the "principles of chemistry" normally introduced in a gênerai chemistry course are introduced within the framework of organic chemistry.4 This new course replaces the regular two-semester organic séquence. For any student not ready for organic chemistry, the school runs a one-semester gênerai chemistry course; the more normal two-semester gênerai chemistry course is no longer offered. We are following a similar approach with an applied gênerai chemistry course taught for e
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