As online education has proliferated, the need for a full core of courses online has emerged. Teaching chemistry online, especially with labs, may have seemed difficult. The course described in this presentation was developed for an adult degree-completion program. The average age of the students was 37 and many of them had bad experiences with science courses in high school. Therefore, many of them were signed up for the course under protest.
The teacher created many video demonstrations to illustrate how chemistry explained basic household phenomena. The labs that were included were all very basic, using readily-available materials; all labs were easily and safely performed. However, the lab reports on the experience required much thought and reflection.
When the students made their final review of the course, they said that they were surprised that chemistry could be so relevant to their daily lives and so easy to perform. In many cases, they performed the labs with their families and that activity became the highlight of their weekend. Even after the course is finished, the students are returning to the site, in many cases to show coworkers how the course worked.
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Back to The 33rd Northeast Regional Meeting (July 14-17, 2005)