Elizabth Rodriguez, & Dr. Ariel Vaughn
Over the last few decades, a disconnect was exposed with how science is taught in the classroom and how it is applied within the real world. Typically, this disconnect is seen in courses like General Chemistry, which are required to build a strong foundation. These courses earn the title of “weeder courses”. While the intention is to “weed out” bad scientists/students, the courses instead leave behind historically underrepresented groups and students with less math preparation.This can create even more barriers for these students to become scientists. We designed a weekly homework assignment to remedy this disconnect between the classroom and applications. In this study, we analyze student responses for forty-four students to the weekly question “How have you observed chemistry outside of class this week?” Students were asked how they observed chemistry, not to describe the chemistry. Despite this, 51.66% of student responses included an additional explanation of why their response is an example of chemistry. During analysis of students provided additional explanations, we noticed that students tend to use more scientific language in the responses that include an additional explanation. Analysis looking at the connection between scientific language and additional explanation in NVivo 14 is currently underway. When students begin to recognize the chemistry taking place around them outside of the classroom and use scientific language to describe what they observe, it signifies a deeper connection and understanding of the material. By helping students bridge these connections, students will see that chemistry can happen anywhere, and that anyone has the ability to become a chemist.