9354642 Cornelius Agencies and chemical educators are calling for major changes in the curriculum for general chemistry at colleges and universities. A call is frequently heard for chemistry to be relevant to the everyday lives of students. This project, Chemistry Domesticated, is providing a radical change in how the material in general chemistry is organized and how it is presented to students, while leaving intact much of the material which must prepare students for further courses in chemistry and other sciences. The chemical topics in a particular chapter are being chosen on the basis not of the chemist's view of the world, but of what chemistry is necessary for the understanding of materials and activities familiar to students. Chapters have titles such as Soil and Fertilizer, Blood, The Laundry Room, and Ice Cream. The subjects for the 22 chapters are being chosen to provide a foundation for a broad range of topics in general chemistry. The chapters are linked by chemical topics discussed in adjacent chapters, such as the chemistry of calcium carbonate being important in both the chapter on Hard and Soft Water (as scale) and the chapter on Eggs (as the major component in egg shell). Numerous appropriate experiments and demonstrations have already been published in the science education literature, and they are being put to work in Chemistry Domesticated. The proposed curriculum is intended not to displace the current general chemistry curriculum, but to provide an alternative to the curriculum that is under attack. The project plans call for a year of development, a year of implementation and modification, and a year of evaluation. ***y
