Instructor: Dr. Barbara Burke and Dr. Edward Walton
Office: Bldg. 3/ Rm. 222
Welcome to your chemical sciences class...In these next ten weeks we will share information and experiences that will provide you with an underpinning in the chemical sciences that will benefit you for the rest of your life.
The goal of this course is to increase your base knowledge of chemistry using hands-on, learner-centered, inquiry-based, reflective pedagogies, and to provide you with a learning experience that will be a model for introducing students to "the chemistry way" of knowing the natural world. Observations of natural phenomena will be a core of the curriculum. You will formulate questions, work cooperatively with peers, gather data to increase your chemical knowledge, and develop plausible answers.
In this model class, you will be carrying out inquiry-based, open-ended investigations, where you will not only "do" laboratory experiments, but will also participate in their design. You will discover that through study and reflection, you can successfully learn enough about topics in science to convey correct information and to design and implement hands-on activities for children in K-8.
This is a "content " course, rather than a "methods" course. However, this new SCI 211 will offer you models of ways you, as a future teacher, will be expected to share your science knowledge with your students. Cooperative learning, for example, is a vehicle through which you can bring your own knowledge and experience to a problem being studied. In addition, research indicates that deeper learning occurs when students learn with each other, rather than by competing with each other.
So that you can see science in more human terms, we shall produce materials that show the human/cultural aspects of chemistry as well as its impact on society. You will research and develop profiles of the lives of people in science and their contributions with special attention to women, minority, and non-European chemists. These profiles will be collected and published in booklet form, presenting chemistry as it really is: a scientific, humanistic, and multicultural pursuit. The booklets will be an invaluable resource to large numbers of science teachers at all educational levels.
Through this course, you not only will learn chemistry, but you will discover the joy of investigating and learning. You will have experiences that will encourage you to be life-long learners of science. You will be able to create a real-life, exciting, challenging, humanistic, and multicultural learning environment when you are teachers of our children in grades kindergarten through eight. You will experience new modes of assessment that invite you to take responsibility for your own learning...
GRADING
In this course you determine your grade by the work you do. Assignments have the following point values:
Poster Session 100
People Paper 100
Science Club Activity 150
Short Exams (2) 200
Lab reports 250
Homework/Quizzes 100
Blue Book 100
Final 200
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Total 1200
A Portfolio at the end of the quarter can give up to 200 additional points.
Our class works on the system that 90% ---A; 80% ---B; 70% ---C
Homework/Quizzes:
These will be spread throughout the course and be in the form of home assignments and activities. All quizzes are announced ahead of time.
Blue Books
You will be asked to turn a "blue book" each week. In that book we want you to address the following questions:
Blue books are due Tuesday and will be returned on Thursday. You may use e-mail in place of blue books.
Lab Reports
The lab report should contain the following four parts:
Purpose: What question are you trying to answer?
Method: What things did you do? How did you do them? Why did you do them?
Observations and Results: Summarize what you observed and what results you obtained.
Discussion: Conclusions from your results. Comparisons with others. Other ideas for further investigations. Comment on how well the experiment answered the question. Comments on safety and improvements in the experiments.
Tests
You will have tests to gage your understanding of basic chemical concepts. The test will be taken individually first, then in groups. The grade will be the average of the two.
Final
The final exam covers all the material in the course.
Portfolio
You are encouraged to keep a course notebook that will contain
It is important that all work is completed on time. Late assignments are much better than not doing the assignment, but may be reduced in grade unless you have made special arrangements with the instructor.
Please contact us if you have special circumstances during the course that might cause a delay in your assignments.
Your Instructors
Dr. Barbara A. Burke is a professor of chemistry at here at Cal Poly Pomona.
She has been teaching at Cal Poly for about 15 years, and teaches general chemistry, consumer chemistry, chemistry for pre-service teachers, and inorganic chemistry for seniors and graduate students.
Dr. Burke is part of the core faculty of the Center for Education and Equity
in Mathematics, Science and Technology (CEEMaST) here at Cal Poly. Over the
past seven years, she has worked closely with in-service elementary and middle school teachers to they strengthen their science content and pedagogical knowledge. For the past year and a half, Dr. Burke has been the "scientist" for Baldwin Elementary School in the Hacienda La Puente District. Her major role has been to model science methodology when she visits and participates in science lessons in the elementary classrooms.
Dr. Burke has instituted the "Letter Exchange" program, an outreach project in which Cal Poly students exchange letters with children in local elementary and
middle schools. At the end of the quarter the elementary or middle school
children come to Cal Poly to meet their pen-pal, visit the campus, and carry
out experiments in the laboratory.
Dr. Burke is originally from Detroit, Michigan where her father worked as a
draftsman and graphic artist for an automobile manufacturer. Her mother is a
talented painter. Her father earned a high school diploma. Her mother attended, but never finished high school because of family financial circumstances. Dr. Burke obtained her B.S. in chemistry from the University of Detroit and her Ph.D. from Purdue University. She was the first woman in her extended family to earn not only a baccalaureate degree but also a Ph.D.
Dr. Edward Walton has been professor of chemistry here at "Cal Poly" for ten years having come from teaching as a civilian professor at the US. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. He spent a year at the Lawrence Hall of Science, at University of California, Berkeley, working as statewide pre-college program coordinator for the MESA (Math Engineering, Science Achievement) Program. At Cal Poly he teaches general college chemistry, senior (advanced) inorganic chemistry, Consumer chemistry and the chemical science course. In addition, Dr. Walton has taught the course in "methods for teaching science" for in the department of education, and during summers teaches the science teaching course for the Claremont Graduate School's teacher Program.
Dr. Walton has served on national science education committees...a review committee for the National Assessment for Educational Progress(NAPE) in Science, the Educational Testing Service’s Committee for the SAT II Chemistry Examination, and the National Academy of Sciences’ working group to develop the National Science Education Standards. He has directed the a summer institute for elementary school teachers, and during three recent summers he worked with area high school chemistry teachers and middle school science teachers in the Institute for Chemical Education to enhance the teaching of chemistry. Dr. Walton has served as Commander, US. Navy and taught in an ROTC preparation program in San Diego, and has done training in Japan and Italy.
Dr. Walton is originally from Montgomery, Alabama where his father taught history at the local college and his mother was a sixth grade teacher. He graduated from Howard University in Washington DC. , went to Oregon, and then to the University of Maryland where he received his Ph. D. degree in chemistry in 1979.