The modern world can be described as a globalized risk society. It is characterized by increasing complexity, unpredictable consequences of techno-scientific innovations and production, and its environmental consequences. Therefore, chemistry, just like many other knowledge areas, is in an ongoing process of environmentalization. For example, green chemistry has emerged as a new chemical metadiscipline and movement. The philosophy of green chemistry was originally based on a suggestion of twelve principles for environment-friendly chemistry research and production. The present article problematizes limitations (...) in green chemistry when it comes to education. It argues that the philosophy of green chemistry in the context of education needs to be extended with socio-critical perspectives to form educated professionals and citizens who are able to understand the complexity of the world, to make value-based decisions, and to become able to engage more thoroughly in democratic decision-making on sustainability issues. Different versions of sustainability-oriented science/chemistry education are discussed to sharpen a focus on the most complex type, which is Bildung-oriented, focusing emancipation and leading to eco-reflexive education. The term eco-reflexive is used for a problematizing stance towards the modern risk society, an understanding of the complexity of life and society and their interactions, and a responsibility for individual and collective actions towards socio-ecojustice and global sustainability. The philosophical foundation and characteristics of eco-reflexive science education are sketched on in the article. (shrink)

A new chronology is introduced to address the history of chemistry, with educational purposes, particularly for the end of the twentieth century and here identified as the fifth chemical revolution. Each revolution are considered in terms of the Kuhnian notion of ‘exemplar,’ rather than ‘paradigm.’ This approach enables the incorporation of instruments, as well as concepts and the rise of new subdisciplines into the revolutionary process and provides a more adequate representation of such periods of development and consolidation. The fifth (...) revolution developed from 1973 to 1999 and is characterized by a deep transformation in the very heart of chemistry. That is to say, the size and type of objects, the way in which they must be done and the time in which they are transformed. In one way or another, chemistry’ limits had been set out. (shrink)

Philosophical debates about chemistry have clarified that the issue of emergence plays a critical role in the epistemology and ontology of chemistry. In this article, it is argued that the issue of emergence has also significant implications for understanding learning difficulties and finding ways of addressing them in chemistry. Particularly, it is argued that many misconceptions in chemistry may derive from students’ failure to consider emergence in a systemic manner by taking into account all relevant factors in conjunction. Based on (...) this argument, undergraduate students’ conceptions of acids, and acid strength were investigated and it was examined whether or not they conceptualized acid strength as an emergent chemical property. The participants were 41 third- and fourth-year undergraduate students. A concept test and semi-structured interviews were used to probe students’ conceptualizations and reasoning about acid strength. Findings of the study revealed that the majority of the undergraduate students did not conceptualize acid strength as an emergent property that arises from interactions among multiple factors. They generally focused on a single factor to predict and explain acid strength, and their faulty responses stemmed from their failure to recognize and consider all factors that affect acid strength. Based on these findings and insights from philosophy of chemistry, promoting system thinking and epistemologically sound argumentative discourses among students is suggested for meaningful chemical education. (shrink)

In this article, from the characterization of technoscience of the English historian J. Pickstone and the recognition of the importance of models and modelling in research and teaching of chemistry, the term technochemistry is introduced as a way of chemical knowledge. With the above new possibilities, rethinking the chemistry curriculum is opened.

A layered interpretation of the history of chemistry is discussed through chemical revolutions. A chemical revolution mainly by emplacement, instead of replacement, procedures were identified by: a radical reinterpretation of existing thought recognized by contemporaries themselves, which means the appearance of new concepts and the arrival of new theories; the use of new instruments changed the way in which its practitioners looked and worked in the world and through exemplars, new entities were discovered or incorporated; the opening of new subdisciplines, (...) which produced, separated scientific communities. The fourth chemical revolution, fundamentally characterized by the incorporation of new instruments in chemical practices is discussed. (shrink)