Put it in context

Chemistry is a fascinating, evolving subject that helps explain the world around us. Many students come to chemistry with a sense of wonder and curiosity, but this can get lost as they progress through examination years.

Early in your science teaching career, it is easy to get sucked into the minutia of mark schemes and dealing with behaviour, but it’s important to remember that teaching isn’t just about ploughing through schemes of work to get learners through exams. We have a wider responsibility to educate students about how chemistry relates to the world and keep those fires of curiosity burning. But how best to go about this?

Use real-life context in your lessons.

To do this well you need to choose your context carefully so you don’t add more confusion to the mix. Give learners too much information and you risk sparking cognitive overload. With that in mind, here are five ways to use context effectively, plus some ideas about planning its use.

1. Make the most of the curriculum

Students often find it easy to explain the properties of diamond and graphite, for example, as they are familiar with these materials, so make the most of relatable curriculum points. It is difficult to teach effectively about pollution, fuels and plastics, for example, without thinking about everyday life. Perfumes evaporating, clothing fibres and the water we drink are all relatable. Integrate concrete examples into your teaching.

2. Channel the news

Help learners connect what they see in the news to what they are learning in class. Pollution, sustainability, climate change and crude oil come up all the time in the news. Find a video clip or article and show it to your learners to give some background to your teaching. You’ll find useful stories on the Science & Environment tab on BBC News, or try a newspaper online.

Remember that part of teaching chemistry is to give the students the ability to interpret stories, identify bias, understand statistics and evaluate arguments. You can use news stories in your science lessons to help learners develop these essential skills.

3. Share the latest research

Handily distilled into short reads, each story has an accompanying Powerpoint summary slide for use in class. The EiC team select these research stories because they have direct links to 14–16 curriculums. Some are an interesting or new context for a topic and some show students how cutting-edge research relates to what they are studying. Questions link the story to the relevant curriculum knowledge.

4. Get the wow factor

5. Talk about careers

Making the most of any local or alumni connections to the chemical industry, too, could give your students a head start.

For the best outcomes, link potential resources into your schemes of work and lesson plans. There is no specific point in the lesson for context to be at its most effective. It could be at the start of a lesson as a scene setter, or as a hook to gain interest; perhaps in a line of questioning to help illustrate the idea. The most appropriate time, however, could also be at the end of a topic, allowing pupils to apply the ideas they have just learned to a new situation. Sometimes it can work as extension reading after class.

When you carefully signpost context and consider the timing and amount you include, you’ll boost your learners’ experience of science and their understanding.