Crystallizing Classroom Chemists: From Isolated Disorder to Organized Interaction in the Teaching of CHemistry

摘要

When the American Chemical Society's Division of Chemical Education (DIVCHED) was organized in 1924, the intent was to "bring about closer cooperation between high schools, colleges and industries and thereby unify the efforts of all those interested in chemical education" (1). But the DIVCHED is a relative newcomer to the scene of chemical education in the United States, ince chemistry was being taught in this country more than 150 years before the DIVCHED was founded. There were few textbooks or laboratory manuals for those early courses, but the problems of what to teach and how to teach it were just as common then as they are today Although the history of chemical education in the United States has been previously reviewed (2, 3), the purpose of this paper is to examine those events specifically related to the organization of chemistry teachers into the cohesive group that is now the DIVCHED.