What is the point of Chemistry?

[MealDealDreamz]

Genuinely asking. I understand that it is essential for life and those that excel at science will love it. But my child is currently cramming for tomorrow and I'm looking at it thinking what really is the point of all this? My child will go into more business and languages subjects at A level hopefully. They like biology and physics but they asked me this morning to help them understand why Chemistry is so important. I just could not explain...

It underpins the whole of life, all the other sciences, engineering, building, the environment, agriculture, manufacturing, food, technology, literally everything. So we all need at least a basic understanding of it. I'm a chemist and am fortunate to have worked in science for my whole career, I appreciate that's not for everyone but we all need to know some of it, the same as we all need to know some maths.

Kids won't use much of the actual content they learn in most of their school subjects. The aim is for them to be a vaguely rounded person who knows a bit about a variety of things in the world and, even more importantly, to exercise their brains by getting them to learn skills, work out problems, collaborate well with others and remember information and ways of doing things and apply them to different tasks. Chemistry probably does that as well as any other subject does.

at secondary school it's more about learning to learn.
each subjects requires different ways of thinking/problem solving which is beneficial in the future even if the subject matter itself is not part if future work/hobby.

But at 13/14 you don't know what you are going to be or what you will need to study so education needs to stay broad for as long as possible.

Exactly. And no matter what you do in life learning different and challenging things is good for brain development and growth.

This sort of question just depresses me. Education in any area is knowledge. If nothing else, it helps with quizzes.

Anyone else remember this?

Chemistry is life itself.
I worked with many brilliant chemists and their intellects never ceased to amaze me.
It’s important that education encompasses as much of the universe as it can.

It's also important that education "enthuses" people and the teaching methods don't turn people off! Given the state of poor behaviour in schools, I'd say we need to be doing things differently to get pupils interested and enthusiastic.

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.

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. 🤷‍♀️

Do you? What will you do to improve behaviour?

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.

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.

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!

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? 😉

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?

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

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.

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.

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.

@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.

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.

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

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.