Teaching How Pollutants Behave

摘要

Rene Schwarzenbach loved to be an examiner. In the oral exams with his students in Environmental Sciences at ETH Zurich he used to draw a chemical structure, then he flashed a smile and asked: "Imagine that one kilogram of this substance is dumped into Lake Zurich! Now think for a minute, what happens next?" If the students were too perplexed to start a meaningful analysis, he was more than happy to solicit their questions: "What kind of information do you need? Just ask me, I can give you all the thermodynamic and molecular data you need." In the end the precision of the student's questions and their ability to navigate between the molecular details and the complex environmental systems were more important for getting a good grade than quick answers.