Communication in Chemistry

Equally important to the technical proficiency that chemistry instructors promote is the development and practice of transferable skills. The ability to communicate effectively to a wide range of audiences continues to be a critical skill identified by employers and graduate programs. Effective communication skills and information literacy are all the more important in today’s political climate where science is often under attack and the proliferation of information may only slightly outpace the rapid dissemination of misinformation. This chapter and book provide a variety of avenues by which faculty from colleges around the country present chemical information to the next generation while developing communication skills and increasing students’ awareness of the role of science in the public sphere. In addition, ideas are presented that demonstrate how the dissemination of this information to the general public reinforces students’ understanding of chemistry and prepares them for opportunities after graduation.

Undoubtedly, stronger communication skills are high on the wish lists of employers when asked to rate their recent college graduate employees. Colleges are increasingly looking to curricular improvements to address this need. For general education cornerstone courses in communication, this involves ensuring transparency and providing clear student learning outcomes. For chemistry courses, and capstone courses in particular, how can we be more cognizant of general education courses and work together on improving students’ communication competencies? Intentional alignment of our curricula across general education and major coursework—cornerstone and capstone—is needed to elicit both depth and breadth of student knowledge and skill for a 21^st century education.

Student learning outcomes in chemistry are guided by the ACS Committee on Professional Training guidelines. In addition to theory and application of chemistry, graduates need to develop critical oral communication skills. At the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC), B.S. chemistry majors must select two of three electives to complete their curriculum: Advanced Organic, Methods of Environmental Analysis, and Research. A spring course, Methods of Environmental Analysis, focuses on introducing students to trace analysis of environmental samples, and includes sampling, preparation, and storage. Unlike a traditional lecture classroom, we spend two-thirds of the semester discussing peer-reviewed environmental analysis articles. The student learning outcomes for the course include assessing and critiquing scientific research articles. To measure these outcomes, pairs of students must select an appropriate research article, present it to their peers, and lead critical discussion about the article. Theoretically, this exercise addresses the learning outcomes rated “very important” by most employers. To assess students’ perceived comfort with oral communication skills, they were given a pre-presentation and a post-presentation survey, which were linked to the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) VALUE (Valid Assessment in Learning for Undergraduate Education) Rubric for Oral Communication. This chapter details the results of the assessments linked to the AAC&U Oral Communication VALUE Rubric and presents suggestions for improving oral communication in the chemistry classroom.

Siena College’s Chemical Communications is an upper-level seminar course that meets the departmental degree requirement for science communication. The course focuses on critical analysis of literature, preparation of formal project proposals, peer review, and both formal and informal presentations. Assignments require students to present scientific information to numerous target audiences, using a variety of presentation methods and media. These skills are reiterated and built upon in subsequent lecture and laboratory courses. Students who completed these activities have reported readiness for graduate school and careers due to the communication and critical thinking skills practiced in this curriculum.

The use of online collaborative assignments between three organic chemistry classrooms, two in the United States and one in Canada, was examined for impact on learners’ communication abilities and confidence. Students were assigned a partner from another university and challenged to communicate over video chat to collaboratively solve problems for six weekly assignments in organic chemistry. One focus of the intervention was to aid in increasing student ability to communicate chemical concepts using verbal, written, and symbolic modes. In this chapter, we will discuss the focus of each assignment, identifying communication modes and how the assignments build in communication complexity. Postassignment reflections will also be described along with exemplary outcomes of student metacognition displayed through these reflections.

Differences in schooling, life experiences, or sociocultural backgrounds, reveal certain groups of postsecondary learners may not have been adequately exposed to field-specific discourse or scientific inquiry methods such as argumentation strategies. This might be especially true for Deaf and hard-of-hearing (D/d/HH) students who are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields and who often use American Sign Language (ASL) as their primary language. We conducted a study that incorporated English language learner (ELL) strategies for writing and scientific argumentation tasks for concepts surrounding climate science. Throughout the qualitative study, we found that the D/d/HH students generally performed as two groups of learners (“explainers” and “persuaders”) when given the task of convincing others about potential sources of climate change. Through data collection and the subsequent assignment of student-specific “argumentation spectra,” results demonstrate the tools that students have (or need) to succeed in this form of scientific discourse. As we aim to level the STEM education and employment attainment playing field for D/d/HH students, we believe that instructors need to provide argumentation strategies in the curriculum to improve the scientific literacy of students.

Reciprocal peer teaching (RPT), or students teaching students, has been employed in the instrumental analysis laboratory to encourage students to better understand and retain concepts concerning analytical instrumentation. The quality and characteristics of teaching during the RPT event and the learning gains from the RPT event have been evaluated qualitatively and quantitatively. Video recordings of the RPT event were evaluated for quality and characteristics of teaching based on a rubric. A pre- and postconcept test was implemented to quantitatively assess learning gains. This chapter shows that the description of the theory of an instrument and the instrumental limitations are challenging for students to explain, and their explanations of these topics are highly varied and sometimes incorrect. However, students are able to explain the steps for using an instrument well. Recommendations for implementing RPT in the instrumental analysis laboratory are presented.

The importance of clear, concise communication in science should be a tenet of every chemistry classroom, beginning with general chemistry. Unfortunately, the traditional written lab report often asks students to rehearse a format rather than practice communicating ideas clearly. In first-year student courses, instructors at Northwestern University have been exploring postlab assignments that require skill sets beyond formal writing. The experiment is designed to build student interest and engagement with the material. Lab reports in alternative formats allow students to use their existing communication skills for scientific purposes. In the process, instructors aim to build confidence and self-efficacy for general chemistry students. One such assignment follows an experiment on synthesis and crystal growth of potassium aluminum sulfate (alum). Students take home a jar of saturated solution and create a video diary, commenting on equilibrium effects and the progress of the crystal growth throughout the quarter. In the videos, students freely talk to the camera as if they were discussing these topics with another student, unlocking their colloquial understanding of the chemistry. Breaking down the standard structure turns the focus of the assignment away from formalities, instead emphasizing the scientific content. While the students admittedly practice formal science writing less, they do get more practice developing a solid understanding using their own words. The aim is to give them the ability to translate their strong comprehension into any format requested of them.

Undergraduate chemistry students need to develop the ability to communicate scientific ideas to both their peers and the public. Upper-level chemistry classes frequently focus on written and sometimes oral communication methods, such as reports and presentations. These traditional methods of dissemination are valuable, but often inaccessible to nonscientists. The information graphic, or infographic, is a mode of visual communication that has become increasingly common in recent years. In four bioinorganic chemistry courses at George Mason University, students created infographics to communicate a scientific idea of interest to them. These flexible projects required students to think creatively about unfamiliar elements and concepts. In this chapter, the framework and logistics of the assignments, assessment, and student feedback will be presented. Lessons learned from these initial years of implementation and recommendations for the future will also be discussed.

Elementary Organic Chemistry is a one-semester course designed to fulfill the organic chemistry requirement for nonscience majors. In this chapter, an alternative approach to the traditional final exam is described. This approach consists of both a paper and an oral presentation in which the students describe an application of organic chemistry. Students work in groups of three to four to identify an application or process involving organic chemistry that is related to their field of study or interests. These applications are then described in terms of the functional groups involved, the reactions that can occur with those functional groups, and how spectroscopy can be used to describe the progress of a reaction. Each group writes a research paper that connects these various areas of lecture-learned content to their selected application. After receiving instructor feedback on the group papers, the students deliver short oral presentations, which entail a concise oration regarding their application of organic chemistry. Through these brief presentations, students describe the relationship between lecture-learned content and their areas of expertise, and they gain practice in efficiently conveying chemistry to a general audience.

Oral presentations are given by students in each semester of a one-year general, organic, and biochemistry course sequence. Presentation topics cover specific content based on material learned in the classroom as well as explanations of relevant applications in everyday life. Students in the general chemistry course component select an individual element as the topic of their talks. When organic structures and biochemical pathways are taught, student presentations describe the structure and function of a pharmaceutical molecule. An example presentation given by the instructor to launch each semester serves as an electronic template for student adaptation. This chapter outlines presentation components, instructional design choices, and recommendations for effective implementation of similar oral presentation projects into chemistry courses. Expanded skills related to general education outcomes are outlined, along with suggestions for providing meaningful feedback to benefit students. Finally, reflections from students and the instructor are shared to highlight the positive perspectives reported after completing these low-stakes presentations in introductory chemistry courses.

The University of New Orleans created two chemistry classes for nonscience majors in 2014 with the hopes of offering students a fun way to fulfill their science requirement. The courses were designed to be interactive with multimedia content. Lights, Camera, Action: The Chemistry of Movies and TV (CHEM 1001) was the first course created and relied heavily on movie and TV clips to showcase both good and bad chemistry portrayed in media. Based on the successful launch of that course and feedback from students over the first two semesters, a decision was made to change the delivery format for the second nonscience majors course that was being created. Life, the Universe, and Everything: Chemistry of Our Daily Lives (CHEM 1002) was reimagined to be a multimedia-driven course instead of a more traditional approach course. Videos would be incorporated from a variety of sources, such as movies and TV clips, YouTube science channels, talk shows, newscasts, and others. Anecdotal evidence shows a better retention of material and a much higher appreciation and evaluation of the multimedia-driven teaching methodology compared to the traditional approach. Examples of using “entertainment” videos to replace traditional lectures will be explored along with some history of the course and other information on teaching using this methodology.

A first-year Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) course called MythBusters was created to support the development of scientific communication skills and college readiness skills for first-year STEM-interested students. This course embeds the pedagogies of communication, information literacy, and community engagement within a course structure inspired by the popular MythBusters television program. University students created short videos exploring myths and urban legends, which were then shown to high school interns at a local science center. Assessment results from instructor observations, student reflections, course evaluations (student assessment of learning gains), and an event survey showed that students experienced learning gains in communication skills. This chapter provides an overview of the curricular design elements, learning outcomes, learning activities, team development approach, grading rubrics, and assessments.

The histories of chemistry and civilization are inextricably intertwined, for the discipline of chemistry has helped to advance much of our technology. As it became a recognizable discipline in its modern form in the late 1600s, it also became a mechanism for communicating science to the public. Throughout the next 300+ years, chemists were able to inform and amaze audiences of young and old alike with their understanding of chemistry. However, in the middle of the 20th century, a new term arose in our collective lexicon—chemophobia—and chemistry lost some of its luster. For the past 50 years, practitioners of chemical communication have been fighting an uphill battle with a general public perception. This chapter attempts to shed some light on the origins and persistence of public perceptions of chemistry. The good news is that the situation is not as bad as it seems.

The ability of any member of the general public to access, understand, and use science information represents an important aspect of modern society, one that argues members of society should be scientifically literate. Regardless of the level of formal classroom education about science, most people obtain scientific news primarily from general news outlets. General chemistry is a course taken by students who major in many scientific disciplines, so it can provide a way for the use of news media in the classroom to impact broader science literacy concerns. Importantly, such connections could also be used to motivate and engage students and give more contextualization and meaning to the subject matter. The research presented here describes a content analysis of chemistry-related articles and compares that content with general chemistry curriculum content knowledge. Results show quite a modest overlap using a content organizational tool called the Anchoring Concepts Content Map.

In the crowded marketplace of ideas, attracting an audience is the biggest challenge facing would-be science communicators. In this chapter, I will discuss the use of art as a way to engage the general public. Visual art has the capacity to create connections and break free from the tyranny of chemical jargon. I will describe my experiences with sharing chemistry-related photographs on social media sites, discuss how these efforts led to broader forms of outreach both online and in the real world, and examine the lessons learned in the process.

The professional use of social media has many advantages, and social media tools can be adapted to meet the goals of chemists and chemistry educators; yet, use of these online tools in chemistry-related disciplines is far less consistent than in other scientific fields. This chapter shares motivations and examples of effective social media use to support teaching, learning, and scholarly activities in chemistry-related disciplines. It also provides insight into why some people are hesitant to use social media and recommendations for addressing the concerns.

While undergraduate chemistry courses have long focused on imparting technical information to students, successful scientists must also translate their findings for different audiences, including collaborators, investors, granting agencies, and the general public. Likewise, it is critical for the public to connect scientific knowledge to problem-solving when dealing with complex technological issues facing society. To build a bridge between scientists and the public, we have developed and implemented several activities in the chemistry department centered around innovation in civic engagement and science communication. Two of these activities will be described in detail: (1) a novel, weeklong module in an introductory chemistry course for nonmajors that utilizes a deliberation format to connect chemistry knowledge with choices and action in societal issues and (2) Speaking Science, a four-day summer program for incoming freshmen that provides a glimpse into the undergraduate research experience while emphasizing critical translational communication strategies and culminates in a poster session for the general public. Specific results from these two activities, which attempt to connect nonscientists and scientists from different perspectives, as well as an overview of the initiative as a whole will be shared.