In today's science education reform efforts, teachers are being asked to teach with different materials, and in different ways than they themselves were taught or learned to teach. This chemistry course will provide future teachers with the solid underpinning needed to understand chemical concepts, and an experience base from which they can draw upon in their teaching. This course will be designed jointly by university chemistry instructors, students, and practicing teachers. It will use hands-on, learner-centered, and inquiry-based pedagogies to promote deeper learning. The course will offer strong chemical content and provide students with a model of effective science teaching. Students will define, design, and carry out investigations of real-world issues. There will be a focus on the human side of science through inclusion of historical, cultural, and environmental perspectives. This project will produce a model of effective chemistry teaching that will be applicable to any undergraduate non-majors or majors chemistry course. The goals of this course are to increase the chemical knowledge base of non-science majors and to provide experiences that will enable them to become life-long learners of science. The objectives are; 1) to develop inquiry-based units that use investigative types of experiences which show the doing of chemistry based on real-world issues, 2) to model effective teaching methods, 3) to produce materials that show the human/cultural aspects of chemistry as well as its impact on society, 4) to model authentic assessment methods that develop a broad, comprehensive picture of a student's overall learning
