Developing a Science Course for Non-Scientists on the Chemistry of Art During the present year a lecture/laboratory course on the chemistry of art has been developed and taught to a class of 40 students at Brandeis. This course - essentially a materials- science course on the fabrication, examination, conservation and authentication ar artifacts - is an effective and attractive way of teaching science to non-scientists. At present two factors limit the course at Brandeis and its adaptation elsewhere, the lack of a suitable text and the difficulty of obtaining the necessary scientific data in a suitable form for teaching (e.g. the scientific data for assessing the restoration of the Sistine Chapel ceiling). The proposal has four components: (i) to develop a scientific text, limited to relevant topics but treated nevertheless in some depth, (ii) to develop, as a pilot project, a teaching laserdisc holding all the scientific and conservation data needed to investigate a famous and problematic artwork The Feast of the Gods (we propose doing this in collaboration with the National Gallery of Art in Washington), (iii) the further development of the successful laboratory component of the course, by introducing chemical microscopy for pigment and fiber characterization, and (iv) the external evaluation of the educational effectiveness of the materials developed, by means of formative evaluation. The primary focus of the proposal is to promote the chemistry of art as a successful and appealing science course for non-scientists; and this may be achieved through the ready availability of a text, of visual material stored on laserdisc and of laboratory experiments developed for the purpose.***//
