The Union of Concepts and Context
CSR Workshop on Undergraduate
Chemistry Education
22 May 2013
Jim Anderson
Harvard University
The Question is: How do we develop an innovative university level strategy leading to the proactive engagement of science and technology in the core objectives of the nation’s future? And why?
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Illiteracy of university graduates in the physical sciences
Physical sciences hold key to solving problems of immense concern
Research has demonstrated how students learn (?) chemistry and physics
Needed:
New Strategic
Approach for
Introduction
Chemistry
Central role and responsibility of physical sciences in societal objectives
Universities have a major responsibility to prepare their graduates
Introductory courses taught without a compelling context exclude rather than include
Large departure of undergraduates from the physical sciences
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P
HYSICAL
S
CIENCES
11:
Frontiers and Foundations of Modern
Chemistry: A Molecular and
Global Perspective
Revolutionary developments in the union of chemistry and physics hold the key to solving unprecedented problems at the intersection of science, technology, and an array of rapidly emerging global scale challenges. In particular concepts central to energy and its transformations, thermodynamics, energy, entropy and free energy, quantum mechanics, atomic structure, molecular bonding, kinetics, catalysis, equilibria and acid-base reactions, and nuclear chemistry are presented with emphasis on the context of (1) world energy sources, forecasts and constraints, (2) the science and technology linking energy and climate,
(3) modern materials and technology.
Instructors:
James G. Anderson and
Gregory C. Tucci
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2010 2015 2020 2025
1. Decisions on what current university graduates face maps directly back to what they take in their freshman year.
2. If courses taken in the freshman year fail to deliver objectives, it is difficult to recover—particularly in the sciences.
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All university graduates today, independent of chosen concentration, face coming to terms with a number of questions:
1.
What technical forces are shaping the modern world?
4.
2.
Which public policy strategies are founded on sound scientific and technological understanding and which are not?
Where are the frontiers of innovation and what implications do those advances hold for professional endeavors ...
3.
not just in technology, but also in international economics, government, ethics, public health, law and education.
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Yet a growing compendium of research has shown that university graduates in the United States are, to a remarkable degree, lacking both fundamental knowledge of the physical sciences and the associated judgment with respect to consequences for society and for the nation’s future.
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Yet a growing compendium of research has shown that university graduates in the
United States are, to a remarkable degree, lacking both fundamental knowledge of the physical sciences and the associated judgment with respect to consequences for society and for the nation’s future.
Research has shown:
1. Significant contributor to this lack of an effective scientific foundation is that introductory chemistry & physics are taught as isolated subjects.
2. Courses taught as isolated course material, without a larger and compelling context, create an exclusive rather than inclusive message leading to irreversible elimination.
8

P
HYSICAL
S
CIENCES
11:
Frontiers and Foundations of Modern
Chemistry: A Molecular and
Global Perspective
Revolutionary developments in the union of chemistry and physics hold the key to solving unprecedented problems at the intersection of science, technology, and an array of rapidly emerging global scale challenges. In particular concepts central to energy and its transformations, thermodynamics, energy, entropy and free energy, quantum mechanics, atomic structure, molecular bonding, kinetics, catalysis, equilibria and acid-base reactions, and nuclear chemistry are presented with emphasis on the context of (1) world energy sources, forecasts and constraints, (2) the science and technology linking energy and climate,
(3) modern materials and technology.
What are those responsibilities :
• to look forward in time to judge challenges emerging 5 years, a decade, two decades in the future;
• to establish a state-ofthe-art science/ technology curriculum to proactively address those emerging challenges; and
• to link those developments into the structure and function of the global enterprise.
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“If I learned anything in my forty one years of teaching, it is that the best way to transmit knowledge and stimulate thought is to teach from the top down. Begin by posing large problems, questions and concepts of the highest significance and then peel off layers of causation as currently understood. Do not teach from the bottom up.”
— E.O. Wilson
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This increasingly powerful union of science and society places the physical sciences in a position of direct responsibility.
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Why does this come back to roost on the physical sciences?
Because (1) technology leadership, (2) advances in human health, (3) national security, (4) international negotiations, (5) world energy sources, forecasts and constraints, (6) the science and technology linking energy and climate, and (7) modern materials....
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....
requires an understanding of energy and its transformations, thermodynamics, entropy and free energy, equlibria, acid-base reactions, electrochemistry, quantum mechanics, atomic structure, molecular bonding, kinetics, catalysis, materials and nuclear chemistry.
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While there are significant differences between universities, there is a general pattern common to all: attrition from the sciences during and following the freshman year.
Eyeballed from the perspective of graduate school or medical school entrance, the situation is at least tolerable.
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National security, competitive economic considerations and human health should dominate public policy debates. But instead, public policy debates are dominated in large part by a lack of essential information and perspective that should be an integral part of a modern university education.
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Time to Melt: 1980
→
2012
32 Years
1.1
×
10 15 kWh
=
3.4
×
10 13 kWh/yr
32 years
Solar Forcing of Climate: 1 × 10 18 kWh/yr
Circulating Energy Between Surface
And Clouds, Water Vapor, CO
2
, Etc.:
1.7 × 10 18 kWh/yr
17
×
10 17
3.4
×
10 13
kWh/yr kWh/yr
=
4.3
×
10 4 q = ( ∆ H fusion
∆ Volume = 16 × 10 3 km 3 – 3 × 10 3 km
= 13 × 10 3 km 3
= 13 × 10 12 m 3 = 1.3 × 10 13 m 3
∆ H fusion
= 3.3 × 10 2 kJ/kg ice
Ice is 9.2 × 10 2 kg/m 3
∆ mass ice = (1.3 × 10 13 m 3 ) 1 × 10 3 kg/m 3
= 1.2 × 10 16 kg ice q = (3.3 × 10 2 kJ/kg) 1.2 × 10 16 kg
= 4.0 × 10 18 kJ = 4.0 × 10 21 J
= 1.1 × 10 15 kWh
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Energy flow per year
Sun
0.5 × 10 18 kWh reflected
1.0 × 10 18 kWh emitted to space
1.5 × 10 18 kWh
Water Vapor
Carbon Dioxide
Clouds
Earth
1.0 × 10 18 kWh into climate system
Ocean
Water Vapor
Carbon Dioxide
Clouds
1.7 × 10 18 kWh cycling within climate system
Ice
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In the US we need
95% of university graduates who are scientifically and technical literate.
Without the basic scientific foundation, it becomes virtually impossible to make the required connections to proactively engage in future decisions.
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Solid evidence has shown that there are two basic failures with the “formalism first” approach to teaching. First, it results in
“disembodied knowledge.”
•
Students cannot attach the knowledge to a context or their past experience, and so it is largely meaningless symbols and facts to memorize.
•
Carl has shown that knowledge obtained this way is filed away in the brain in a separate compartment and building links to that compartment after the fact is much harder and less effective than if it had been filed correctly from the start.
23

P
HYSICAL
S
CIENCES
11:
Frontiers and Foundations of Modern
Chemistry: A Molecular and
Global Perspective
Revolutionary developments in the union of chemistry and physics hold the key to solving unprecedented problems at the intersection of science, technology, and an array of rapidly emerging global scale challenges. In particular concepts central to energy and its transformations, thermodynamics, energy, entropy and free energy, quantum mechanics, atomic structure, molecular bonding, kinetics, catalysis, equilibria and acid-base reactions, and nuclear chemistry are presented with emphasis on the context of (1) world energy sources, forecasts and constraints, (2) the science and technology linking energy and climate,
(3) modern materials and technology.
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Course Objectives
Linking Concepts with Context
CONTEXT
Glogal Energy
Structure
Consequences:
Structure of the Climate
Energy Options
Energy Technology
Carbon Footprints
Climate Engineering
Energy:
Scienti fi c
Foundations
Thermodynamics
Chemical
Equilibria
Electrochemistry
CONCEPTS
Electricity &
Magnetism
Induction
Quantum
Mechanics
Molecular
Bonding
Kinetics
Photochemistry
Nuclear
99 th percentile
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ism emerges, there is a proactive engagement of the concepts with the larger contextual vision. Th is provides an individual seeking to understand a scienti fi c principle with a much more robust and useful knowledge base.
So it is the union of these two perspectives: (1) the critical role played by the physical sciences in the solution of unprecedented societal need and objectives, and (2) compelling evidence for how scienti fi c principles and quantitative reasoning skills are mastered at the university level that establishes the structure of this text. Given that the objective of the text is to (1) establish the imperative de fi ning the central role that the principles of chemistry and physics play in the unfolding global challenges, (2) develop the core concepts of, among others: energy and energy transformations, thermodynamics, chemical equlibria, acid/base and redox reactivity, electrochemistry, quantum mechanics, molecular bonding, kinetics, catalysis, materials, nuclear, and (3) establish the direct link between those core concepts and the larger global context, the structure of the text consists of three primary elements. Each chapter opens with a “Framework” section that establishes the larger context de fi ning why the scienti fi c concepts treated in that chapter are critically important to science and technology’s role in addressing rapidly emerging challenges at the global scale. Th e chapter “Core” that addresses the quantitative concepts central to the modern physical sciences follows that Framework section. Th e third element in the chapter structure are the “Case Studies” that link the concepts in the chapter Core to the larger global context. Th ose Case
Studies fall into three categories: (a) Case Studies designed to build quantitative reasoning skills, (b) Case Studies designed to build a technology backbone, and (3) Case Studies designed to build a global energy backbone to supply the dramatic expansion in the need for primary energy generation
Th us, as the adjoining fi gure illustrates in graphical form, the Case Studies link the central concepts in contemporary physical science and technology into the global concepts of human health, technology leadership, economic choices, national security, energy production and distribution, climate consequences of energy production choices, and international negotiations to pick a few examples .
Th is development of the context and the concepts together in the structure of the text does not imply, however, that these changes are done at the expense of rigor in the development of scienti fi c principles. Th e depth of the development of both the context and the scienti fi c principles are gauged to provide the student with the preparation needed to compete successfully today and in the future in the international scienti fi c and societal arena.
International Negotiations:
Technology Leadership,
Arms Control
BUILDING
A TECHNOLOGY
BACKBONE
CASE
STUDIES
Innovative New Materials:
Nano Structures, Self Assembly,
Solar Cells, Electronics
Energy Production, Storage and
Distribution
– Concepts –
Human Health: Molecular and
Cellular Level Imaging, Low Cost
Disease Detection, Clean Water
Feedbacks in the Climate Structure:
Thermodynamics, the First Law &
Irreversibility
BUILDING A
GLOBAL ENERGY
BACKBONE
– Context –
CA
SE
STUDIES
BUILDING
QUANTITATIVE
REASONING
Technology Leadership: Electronics,
Electric Automobiles, Health Systems and Software
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99 th percentile
Physical Sciences 11
Global Calculations Clinic
3 May 2013
10AM Hall B
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1.What is the ratio of power received from the Sun to the power consumed by the human endeavor? What is the amount spent on energy extraction and distribution each year world-wide?
2.How do you calculate global energy demand? The increase in global energy demand?
3.To meet that demand do we need to build a 600MW power plant every month for the next 40 years? Every week?
Everyday? Two every day?
4.When we trace the flow of energy from its production to its end use, why is 65% lost to waste? What controls that?
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5. How much does the nation spend on petroleum imports each year? What fraction is from the Western Hemisphere, what fraction from the Middle East?
6. How do you calculate energy to propel a gasoline automobile 100km? An electric car 100km? How much does the nation spend on gasoline each year? If the fleet was electric how much would the nation spend? By what fraction would that increase electricity demand?
7. Is it more efficient to heat a home by burning natural gas in the home or burn it in a power plant and then employing a heat pump in the house using that electricity?
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8. Given that the US uses 3 TW of power, what fraction of the state of Arizona is required to generate 1 TW from concentrated solar thermal? What fraction of the land area of the Middle West is required to generate a second TW from wind power? How much does each cost? How much does it cost to install a national grid?
9. We have lost 50% of the permanent floating ice on the
Arctic Ocean in the past 30 years. What controls the rate of removal of the second half? When was the Arctic last without permanent floating ice? How does the amount of energy required to melt that amount of ice each year compare to the amount of energy circulating between the Earth’s surface and the water vapor, clouds and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere?
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PUBLIC POLICY
&
GOVERNMENT
ECONOMICS
PHYSICS
CHEMISTRY
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ECONOMICS
PUBLIC POLICY
&
GOVERNMENT
SCIENCES
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Spring 2012: First Lecture - 25 Students;
Second Lecture - 50 Students; Third
Lecture - 100 Students; Fourth Lecture
-125 Students
Spring 2013: ~ 300 Students
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• END
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