Opinion

Teaching thermochemistry

By 2014-06-02T19:34:00

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A survey of some useful recent articles on the teaching of thermochemistry and thermodynamics for second and third level students

I’m really enjoying Education in Chemistry’s new series on CPD with regards to teaching chemical topics. While these are (I assume) meant primarily for second level, I think there is a lot in them that is applicable across all sectors. The most recent is Derek Denby’s excellent article on energetics.1 I was struck in particular by the (previously) unforeseen confusion that may arise with regards to terms “system” and “surroundings”. 

While on the topic of teaching thermochemistry, it is worth flagging a useful review of the research on teaching and learning early undergraduate thermodynamics published recently by Towns et al in Chemistry Education Research and Practice (CERP - free to access).2 This covers various aspects of teaching thermodynamics: the role of maths, students view of matter, and a series of student conceptions. The latter is relevant to the discussion above.

Michael Seery considers these articles on teaching thermochemistry and thermodynamics and how they might be used to modify teaching practice.

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