What is the point of Chemistry?

@ScienceDragon

A greater focus on cross-curricula studies would also be beneficial. For example, writing a science report requires science, math, English (and depending on the particular investigation) even some history or geography.
Imagine if, students did a lab experiment, then their English teacher taught them how to write the science report, and the maths teacher taught them how to assess the data, and calculate results? And if the history teacher talked about the history behind the science? End result would be students who had a very solid grasp on key concepts, rather than fleeting (and possibly irrelevant) knowledge about many.

YES! That would be so much better than our fragmented way of teaching.

I remember spending a full term learning about rocks in Geography and then another full term learning about rocks in Chemistry - lots of overlap, but also lots of contradictions that were very confusing. I thought at the time that it would have made sense to teach both "subjects" together, it would have saved time, and made the links so much clearer and easier to understand.

Physics and tech could work well together i.e. torque, forces, friction, lubrication, in "resistant" materials, and electronics in systems design, heat & pressure in cooking etc. Physics and biology could work well together with, say, the eyes where currently the eye is taught in both subjects, but in different ways, for different reasons, and the diagrams that students need to learn are different, so again, confusing when different diagrams of the same organ show different components. Also torque, forces etc when looking at muscles in biology.

Such things are often obvious to adults with life experience, but to teenagers, different concepts/ideas are often "silo's" by a young undeveloped brain so they don't automatically see the links and relevances.

Personally, it was years after I left school that it suddenly dawned on me that metals were rocks, and that substances like iron was exactly the same "iron" in your body than it was in the ground or converted into a lump of steel. Blatantly obvious now, when I look back, but during school years, I genuinely thought that iron in the body was something completely different from iron in the ground. That was after having been "taught" about rocks in geography and chemistry, iron in chemistry and biology etc.

I don't agree that science or math are irrelevant. I am happy to agree with anyone that science and math are taught very poorly (due to poorly thought out curriculums, and NOT the fault of teachers), and that a focus on teaching a very shallow understanding of a multitude of topics within each of these areas is doing students a disservice.

If I had my way, secondary science students would spend the bulk of their science time in a lab, engaged in practical investigations, and doing deep dives into a limited range of topics. That would allow students to have a far more realistic idea of whether pursuing a science-based career was for them or not. It would also equip them with skills that could be translated into any environment - research, investigation, data assessment, etc.

A greater focus on cross-curricula studies would also be beneficial. For example, writing a science report requires science, math, English (and depending on the particular investigation) even some history or geography.

Imagine if, students did a lab experiment, then their English teacher taught them how to write the science report, and the maths teacher taught them how to assess the data, and calculate results? And if the history teacher talked about the history behind the science? End result would be students who had a very solid grasp on key concepts, rather than fleeting (and possibly irrelevant) knowledge about many.

Maybe it has got dull and boring since my day,
www.labnews.co.uk/article/2097418/national-curriculum-biggest-threat-to-practical-science-in-schools-warns-survey

So? What if any of your friends had wanted to become scientists? What about if they’d had that yearning later in life? What if they decided to be scientists aged 14, having taken the decision to quit science? Limiting opportunities for young people is not a road I want to go down - shame on you that you do. It’s not about the application, in adulthood, of specific bits of knowledge gained during GCSE - it’s about giving YP choices in adulthood.

I’m quite stunned tbh that a degree educated paramedic and midwife don’t have GCSEs in science btw. I assume they entered the professions before they needed degrees?

At 13, when selecting your options, teens may think they know what they will 'need' for the rest of their life, but they don't. They don't know what will enthuse them later. So GCSEs give them a 'general' education about a lot of things so they have a broad base for future learning.

I know why helium balloons are safer than hydrogen. I know why things rust.
I know how to move a heavy object, and why some things are more prone to topple over.
I know why leaves go brown in winter and why biological washing powder works only at certain temperatures.

Science underpins a lot of modern day life. It is important everyone is given the opportunity to at least try to understand it.

It seemed to me when I was doing O and A levelslevels that some people struggled because it was the subject which combined fact, experiment, that sort of logic, a bit of maths with more abstract ideas - but that’s why I loved it.
My career has been writing scientific software, I’d never thought about it in those terms but the coding side came pretty easily.

Have any of you actually looked at a chemistry GCSE paper recently? How often do you use this below when thinking about the limescale on your taps or cooking or gardening? You don’t because it’s pointless.

I may not think precisely about valency and so on, but I do think about acids and alkalis and how they interact in cooking and cleaning, and definitely which mineral deficiency is turning my rose leaves yellow. I don't need the full chemical equations, but I know it's what lies behind things, and I could look things like that up online if I wanted to. And my mind is sufficiently curious that sometimes I might, if it's not busy thinking about the etymology of some word or when we first started using a particular industrial process or the syntax for a shell script or the metre in a poem. My life doesn't generally need all that stuff, apart from the shell script, but I'm fine with thinking about all these things, because life is much duller otherwise. And if I hadn't been to school I wouldn't have gained even a basic knowledge about much of it. And maybe knowing nothing except completely functional stuff is fine,but it would take a lot of colour out of life. Science and literature and art and maths and language and humanities and ... everything, everything links together in one way or another, because we live in amazing, complex, beautiful world. Education helps us see that, as well as being useful.

A lot of GCSE-level chemistry is about symbol manipulation ("this ion is 2+ so it will try to grab two minuses to make a stable molecule"). It's kind of the Lego (or Minecraft) of school subjects. It develops logical skills that can be very useful in other fields like IT.

You are joking, right?

That looks like methane and bromide, so I'd be thinking fire extinguishers.

Maybe they should teach using social media instead. Far more interesting than pointless crap like organic chemistry.

You really think kids should limit their education to the subjects they find interesting from the start of secondary school?
Nuts.

Also all these comments saying “you learn it for cooking and cleaning and rust” come on, it’s such a stretch, you really don’t.

Have any of you actually looked at a chemistry GCSE paper recently? How often do you use this below when thinking about the limescale on your taps or cooking or gardening? You don’t because it’s pointless.

@Gingernauthow long did it take for you to make up loads of fake reasons why the sciences are needed for all of those professions?
I did that on purpose, as I have friend that’s do each of those professions and can assure you none of them have GCSE chemistry!

My friend is a paramedic and got all Ds and Es at school, the hardest thing she needed to pass her paramedic exam was the grip test. She is fantastic at her job.

My dog walker loves dogs and picks up poo, no GCSE’s in chemistry, very few at all.

My husband has one of those jobs no science GCSEs. It’s utter nonsense.

I have one of those jobs, hated science got a C and remember none of it and use none of it all in my career or in life utterly pointless much like Pythagoras.

I'm a Classics prof and did Chemistry for O level. It's been genuinely useful to me over the years for understanding the world around me - more so, I have to say, than most of Maths O level has been but I am still glad I was made to do it.

DH and I are both chemists. ‘Business’ people who are scientifically illiterate (problem was even worse before the national curriculum provided a very basic grounding) are a curse.

My most obviously useful GCSE was probably Statistics, but knowledge from other subjects was probably more valuable.

@Fyreheart ,the clothing brand or the NaCl sort?

Sea salt - Wikipedia

Table salt has Na₄[Fe(CN)₆]·10H₂O in it.

My DM is like this - she likes Sea Salt as 'it has no chemicals in it'

You want everything dumbed down?

‘No need to learn about why these two chemicals go bang, just look at the pretty colours!’

You do realise some people in your Geography/Maths etc GCSE will have used their knowledge of trig, sediments etc?

I've looked at all the topics in ds2's exams and I found much of it incredibly dry and boring. Where's all the fun and interesting bits? Where have they all gone. Did Gove only leave all the most boring bits on purpose? 😉

Eh?

I don't see it that way.

But, What's the point of any GCSE exam? Or any exam, ever? Most of them are irrelevant. I doubt ds2 will ever use Macbeth again. Or geography with its different rock types and layers.

Can't say I've ever used trigonometry since leaving school, in my accounts job!

Good luck to him!
You're absolutely right, and I hate all this "what's the point of learning x" you get from some students and parents.

I just dropped DS off for this morning's chemistry. He said he enjoys chemistry and should do well. Eng Lit tomorrow, he's not so sure about. Different people have different skills and strengths, but there is absolutely no harm in the young adults leaving should now not to have a basic, general broad understanding of many topics, and ways of thinking that brings.

Do you? What will you do to improve behaviour?

You can literally say this about any of the exams that are taking place atm. Some
kids will use it in the future others won’t. 🤷‍♀️

Exactly. How are we going to have highly qualified adults in the future if we let kids drop loads of subjects in Y9? We should be getting them to narrow down their subjects later not earlier than we already do.