Inquiry-based Practical Chemistry

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Inquiry-based Practical Chemistry its
Assessment??????????????

• 5 Nov 2005

Science Education Section EDB
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Programme
900 915 / 200 215 Registration
915 920 / 215 220 Introduction Mr W C HO, EDB
920 1030 / 220 330 Why teachers need to implement inquiry-based teaching? Approaches and samples of inquiry-based experiments Prof Derek Cheung, Faculty of Ed, CUHK
1030 1040 / 330 340 Break
1040 1145 / 340 445 How to assess inquiry-based practical work? Samples of scoring rubrics Prof Derek Cheung, Faculty of Ed, CUHK
1145 1200 / 445 500 More samples of inquiry-based chemistry expts Mr W C HO, EDB
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Scientific Inquiry

• Inquiry - an active engaging process that mimics
  the work done by actual scientists.
• Require students to design some or all of the
  procedures (ownership and motivation) autonomy
• Increase the opportunities for students to think
  about the data they should collect and their
  presentation
• Lead to a deeper understanding of scientific
  concepts
• In guided inquiry, students
• choose what data to be collected
• design the procedures to address the question for
  investigation
• In open inquiry, students make almost all the
  decisions including the questions for
  investigation

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Scientific Inquiry

• The diverse ways in which scientists study the
  natural world and propose explanations based on
  the evidence from their work.
• The activities through which students develop
  knowledge and understanding of scientific ideas,
  as well as an understanding of how scientists
  study natural world.
• US National Science Education Standardshttp//www
  .nap.edu/readingroom/books/nses/html/pdf/index.htm
  l

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Scientific Enquiry

• http//www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/keystage3/respub/
  sc_enquiry
• National Curriculum Handbook for Teacher
• DfES, UK

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• Inquiry-based teaching engages students in
  investigations to satisfy curiosities, with
  curiosities being satisfied when individuals have
  constructed mental frameworks that adequately
  explain their experiences.
• Inquiry-based teaching begins or at least
  involves stimulating curiosity or provoking
  wonder. There is no authentic investigation or
  meaningful learning if there is no inquiring mind
  seeking an answer, solution, explanation, or
  decision.

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Types of Scientific Enquiry

• Surveys and correlations (pattern seeking)
• Controlling variables (fair test)
• Identification and classification
• Using and evaluating a technique
• Technology (make something or invent a system to
  solve the problem)
• Using experimental models and analogies to
  explore an explanation, hypothesis or theory
• Using secondary sources
• ?appropriate approach to solve the problem

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• Goldsworthy A, Watson R, Robinson V W (2000)
  Developing Understanding in Scientific Enquiry,
  ASE
• Sang D Robinson V W (2002) Teaching Secondary
  Scientific Enquiry, ASE 

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Authentic Investigations that are Meaningful to
Students

• Drain Cleaners
• Mosquitoes repellants
• Antioxidants in fruits and tea
• Vitamin C in fruits and drinks (Does Ribena
  contain 4 times the vitamin C of oranges?)
• Biodiesel from vegetable oils
• Fuel cell from pencil and aluminium can
• Hot cup and fever eliminator
• Preventing corrosion of metals
• Colour-safe bleach
• Skin whitening cream
• Tooth whitening strip
• Chloride content in foodstuffs
• Prevent metal from corrosion (e.g. bridge, wok)

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Quantitative Investigations

• Do iron tablets deteriorate?
• Titration of iron(II) sulphate with KMnO4
• The salt content of different foods
• Titration of chloride ions with AgNO3 using KCrO4
  as indicator
• Chlorine in swimming pools

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Qualitative Investigations

• Oxygen-absorber (???/????) present in packages
  of moon-cakes
• Find out the chemical species responsible for
  oxygen absorption
• Simple chemical tests

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Preparative Investigations

• Biodiesel
• Energy crisis
• Demonstrate the green chemistry principle of
  using renewable resources
• Prepare biodiesel from vegetable oils
• Compare properties with other fuels
• http//www.chemsoc.org/networks/learnnet/green/bio
  diesel/home.htm

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Amazing Miracle

• Use milk in making
• Plastic
• Glue
• Invisible glove
• Photographic film
• Fire resistant paint

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Natural Mosquito Repellant from Fruit Peels

• Mosquito-borne diseases e.g. Dengue fever,
  Japanese encephalitis
• N,N-diethyl-3-methylbenzamide (DEET) ???
• Terpineol in fruit peels
• Fradin, M.S. Day, J. F. (2002) Comparative
  Efficacy of Insect Repellents against Mosquito
  Bites. New England J. of Medicine. 347(1),
  pp.13-18 http//content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full
  /347/1/13

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Design and Make Investigations

• Using enthalpy changes for heating and cooling in
  camping
• Design and make a self-heating can to heat the
  coffee contained in a standard size can to 65oC
  and to maintain it at this temperature for up to
  30 minutes
• Design and make
• a pocket hand-warmer
• a system that could be used to keep drink cool

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Aluminium-Air Fuel Cell

• Construct useful things from waste materials
• Design and construct an aluminium-air fuel cell
  from soft drink cans
• Investigate the current produced with different
  electrolytes
• Investigate the cell e.m.f. and current produced
  with different metal anodes
• http//www.ectechnic.co.uk/fuelcell.html

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Fair Tests

• Investigating the effects of varying fuels and
  electrolytes on the electrical energy generated
  in an alkaline fuel cell
• http//chem.hku.hk/fuelcell/demo.htm
• Further investigations on electrochemical cells
• determine the concentration of unknown solution
• potentiometric titration

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Menthos and Cola

• Adds a "Menthos" type candy to a glass of soda
  pop. Students observe an increase in "fizz" or
  release in carbon dioxide.
• Possible explanations?
• Investigations different candies / cola, no. of
  candies, temp, container, shape of candy
• http//www.consumptionjunction.com/downloadsnew/cj
  _49646.wmv
• http//www.scienceman.com/scienceinaction/pgs/demo
  _9u2_01.html

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CD-ROM
Possible Chemistry Investigations
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Laboratory Investigations

• http//chem.lapeer.org/Chem2Docs/Index.html

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Problem-solving Activities

• http//www.chemsoc.org/networks/learnnet/rscpubs.h
  tm
• In Search of Solutions
• Egg Races (enjoyable, competitive, practical
  problem-solving activities which required some
  application of chemical principles) free
  download
• In Search of More Solutions

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Investigation Sheets

• http//www.york.ac.uk/org/seg/salters/chemistry/Re
  sourceSheets/rsindex.html
• Background, Practical Techniques, Where to Start,
  Possible Investigations, Source of Information,
  Teacher Notes

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Teachers role

• Choose activities that match students background
  knowledge and reasoning skills
• Communicate effectively to students what the
  educational purposes of the investigation
  (learning of scientific process and answering the
  question being investigated)
• Challenging students to defend the quality of
  their evidence and arguments
• Creating an environment in which students become
  critical of their own and others evidence
• Expose students thinking and make it more
  accessible to discussion and development using
  displayed questions or variable tables, etc

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Questioning

• Strategies for helping students ask questions
• Provide students with an observable phenomenon to
  ask questions about
• Have students read articles regarding interesting
  happenings in science
• Suggest possible topics for investigation (a list
  of possible investigations) e.g. How much NaOCl
  is found in commercial bleaches and how does it
  compare to the claimed?
• Edwards, C H(1997)

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From Cookbook to Inquiry

• Transition to inquiry-based instruction by
  implementing changes gradually e.g. remove the
  data table
• Shifting toward guided and open inquiry by
  continuing to remove the supports of the activity
• Assessment should stress goals in scientific
  reasoning and critical thinking in addition to
  content knowledge
• Assess students abilities to generate open-ended
  and researchable queries, devise scientific
  procedure, interpret data

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Assessment

• Achievement level matrixes in internal assessment
  of International Baccalaureate (IB)
• 2 aspects apply to data collection (collecting
  and recording raw data organizing and presenting
  raw data), data processing and presentation, and
  manipulative skills
• 3 aspects apply to planning, conclusion and
  evaluation, personal skills

Level 3 3 2 2 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0
Completely ? ? ? ?
Partially ? ? ? ?
Not at all ? ? ? ?
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References

• Baumgartner E. (2004). Student Poster Sessions.
  The Science Teacher. March, pp. 39-41.
• Colburn, A. (2004). Inquiry scientists wants to
  know. Educational Leadership. 62, pp.63-66.
• Colburn, A. (1997). How to make lab activities
  more open ended. CSTA Journal, pp.4-6.
• Edwards, C. H. (1997). Promoting Student Inquiry.
  The Science Teacher. 64 (7). pp.18-21.
• Lechtanski, V.L. (2000). Inquiry-based
  Experiments in Chemistry. New York Oxford
  University Press.
• Lunsford, E. Melear, C. T. (2004). Using
  scoring rubrics to evaluate inquiry. J. of
  College Science Teaching, Sept.
• ??? (2004) ??????????????
• ??? (2004) ??????????????

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