The Use of “Contexts” as a Challenge for the Chemistry Curriculum: Its successes and the need for further development and understanding

Abstract

In this paper we reflect on the experiences and results of the development and implementation of context‐based chemistry education. This development is discussed with respect to five challenges defined for chemistry curricula (Gilbert, 2006). Five context‐based approaches were selected that will provide the data for this study (Bennett & Lubben, 2006; Bulte, Westbroek, De Jong, & Pilot, 2006; Hofstein & Kesner, 2006; Parchmann, Gräsel, Baer, Nentwig, Demuth, Ralle, & the ChiK Project Team, 2006; Schwartz, 2006). These approaches have been presented using a model to represent the spiral development of an ideal curriculum until the experienced and attained curriculum (Goodlad, 1979; Van den Akker, 1998). For each of the five approaches we analysed their contribution to the five curricular challenges, the essential characteristics of the outcomes and products, the conditions that were fostering and hindering the development, the design principles, the tools and the procedures used. The outcomes of the analysis are related to Gilbert’s criteria for the ‘use of contexts’ in chemistry education. This leads the identification of priorities as new hypotheses and challenges that set the future agenda for systematic curriculum development of context‐based chemistry education.

Acknowledgements

We are very grateful to all the contributors of the symposium on context‐based chemistry education during the ESERA conference 2005 in Barcelona. We enjoyed the productive and pleasant cooperation when preparing this paper and this Special Issue. Thank you: John Gilbert of the Institute for Education, The University of Reading, Reading, United Kingdom, Judith Bennett and Fred Lubben of the University of York, York, United Kingdom, Avi Hofstein and Miri Kesner of the Department of Science Teaching, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, Ilka Parchmann of the University of Oldenburg, Germany, and Truman Schwartz of the Department of Chemistry, Macalester College, Saint Paul, MN, USA.