Case Studies in Chemistry

Reading 34, page 499

Case Studies in Chemistry

Chemistry has many teaching styles:

- traditional lecture style

- problem based learning

- guided inquiry learning

- team / group learning

Case studies: - widely used in business, law, medicine and engineering

- now being developed for use in teaching science

- developed by Canisus College, Buffalo, New York

- brings CSI into the classrooms

Case Studies in Chemistry

Why use case studies:

- claims to make laboratory more interesting, challenging,

and relevant to students

- teach course content in an interesting manner

- demonstrate the real world significance of content

Case Studies in Chemistry

Example given: - based on an actual case of murder in London

- dark skinned body is found in a river with no head or limbs

- pollen found in the stomach indicate an recent arrival

from overseas

- other evidence suggests the boy is from Nigeria

- analysed strontium level in bones

- compared strontium levels in bones with levels in soil from

different regions of Nigeria to get the region of origin

Case Studies in Chemistry

Class work: - students are given data on strontium levels in bones and

soil from different regions of Nigeria

- advanced students were given doctored samples for their

own testing (not likely in NZ schools)

- had to do statistical analysis on the information

- write a report on methods used and results obtained

Case Studies in Chemistry

Are case studies effective? - two person teams most effective (equal participation)

- requires students to think about the data given to them

- decide which data points will be used

- draw conclusions from their data

- practice writing reports (real world skills)

- cross-subject projects

Case Studies in Chemistry

Where to from here? - web site (reference 6) has numerous case studies

- all cases have teaching notes and forms to help teaching

- many case studies are based on actual events

- most seemed to be aimed at university students

- wide range of subjects and topics

- ethical questions often involved, but researching the topics

exposes students to chemical processes or knowledge

- chemistry examples

ethanol from corn or biodiesel from soybeans

energy drinks – best value for money

Case Studies in Chemistry

Where to from here? - web site encourages you to modify the cases to local

conditions

- case studies in other subjects,

e.g. biology, physics, food science, astronomy, weather

- also links to numerous other web sites

- good base to use when thinking about what or how to

design a case study.

- possible examples -

- what would be the effect of urea in milk instead of melamine?

- how does the Reginal Council balance water supply and demand in a local river?

Case Studies in Chemistry

Possible difficulties: - little practical work (science fair projects?)

- mainly exercises in manipulating raw data, debating

issues, report writing

- probably not suitable for lower level classes due to

multi-disciplinary nature of cases

- time consuming – curricilum constraints (extension work?)

- probably few N Z related resources