11.2.1 Website Rationale
Since the eighties there has been a growing understanding that chemistry should be presented in class not only as a scientific discipline, but also as a subject that influences the student’s personal life and affects society. We found that integrating industrial and everyday life chemistry topics into the formal curriculum proved effective to increase the relevance and applicabil- ity of chemistry as learnt by high-school students in Israel.3 In parallel, it was shown that when teachers used varied teaching methods, they were more successful in motivating their students, in creating activities that support the relevance and applicability of chemistry, in presenting occupational possi- bilities in chemistry-related professions, and in raising students’ awareness
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regarding chemistry-related environmental issues. In addition, evidence accumulated demonstrating the educational power of ICT in helping to design varied contexts and methods for teaching and learning that encour- age active and social learning.4
notwithstanding this evidence, teaching resources in hebrew that could allow web-based learning to be brought to class by chemistry teachers in Israel were very scarce, and in fact non-existent regarding the connection to chemical industry. For this reason, the “General Chemistry and Industrial Chemistry at the Service of Mankind” website was developed. The main goals for launching the website in 2002 were (1) to develop new teaching and learning materials suited to the novelty that ICT offered (visualization tools, communication facilities, access to varied reading materials, miscellaneous software like applets, simulations and games, etc.); (2) to introduce ICT to chemistry teachers and help them overcome any implementation reluctance by facilitating their introduction through open-access teachers’ guides and courses; and (3) to create our own databases in hebrew that combined chem- istry-related, free resources about local industrial chemistry plants, their products and raw materials, and relevant technological, economical, and environmental issues. The latter goal was intended to advance equity and inclusion of hebrew-speaking students as being part of a worldwide commu- nity of chemistry learners.
11.2.2 Website Development Process and Resulting Contents and Format
The website was developed as a curriculum-based interactive website for high school chemistry planned to highlight industrial and everyday life chemis- try.5 Its Url at present (2023) is: https://stwww1.weizmann.ac.il/learnchem.
Both form and content of the earliest version of the website resulted from two years of development in collaboration with experienced chemistry teach- ers who participated in a series of development workshops. The website orig- inal components are presented in Table 11.1.
regarding content, the web-based activities were available through the different website sections and were designed to attain one or several of the following aims: complementing the chemistry syllabus to emphasize the rel- evance that chemistry has in the industry and in daily life; enhancing stu- dents’ investigative and thought processing skills through web-based active learning environments; and raising students’ interest in chemistry and moti- vation to learn through enrichment activities and social learning. The wide range of learning environments and activities developed for the website was planned considering that most chemistry classes are heterogeneous and include diverse populations of students with varied backgrounds and abil- ities. From the start, the website offered different kinds of materials, such as dynamic learning units composed of several sub-units that spanned dif- ferent aspects of specific chemistry topics and promoted equity among stu- dents by allowing them to make personalized decisions about their learning.
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eventually, more emphasis on laboratory work emerged from the chemis- try inspectorate in the Ministry of education, urging us to develop laboratory mini projects based on industrial and everyday life issues. additional web- site sections were developed and incorporated to serve the needs of teach- ers who implemented the “Industrial Initiatives” approach:6 a new teaching model for bringing industrial chemistry issues to class by varied learning activities assessed through diverse evaluation tools and a portfolio. all these approaches, and others, were gradually uploaded to the database of the web- site, free for use.
Through our collaborating teachers, we learned that presenting the website contents along with suitable teaching strategies and pedagogical guidance Table 11.1 Website components and sub-components.
Website components Website sub-components about the Chemical Indus-
try-education link Centre General information, publications, activities, courses, contact information
link to the chemistry syllabus Topic-relevant learning materials and activities Glossary General and industrial chemistry terms listing,
including short explanations
Chemical industry in Israel Databases on main industrial chemistry plants, including location maps
Chemical products in Israel Databases on 100 chemical products, related to the syllabus, including visual models
Selected subjects in daily life
chemistry Medicine and health, foods and drinks, clothing, plastics, forensic and environmental chemistry Students’ corner Games, home experiments, questions of interest, an open line to experts, “Why chemistry?” and
“It is interesting to know that…” entries Teachers’ corner Open line to experts, a collection of exam papers,
guides for field trips to chemical industries, sub- jects for discussion and suggestions of discus- sion stages, interesting articles
Forums (students, teachers) Questions and dilemmas discussed in class, sup- port forums for in-service training courses, experimental groups of teachers
Guides Student and teacher guides
From the news “hot” newspaper clippings
page of the month Selected up-to-date articles pertaining applications of chemistry, environmental and industrial chemistry
The people behind chemistry Scientists, researchers, nobel prize winners, indus- try employees, prominent figures in the history of chemistry
Gallery Syllabus and industrial chemistry related articles, pictures, presentations, videos, production pro- cesses flow charts
related links Organizations, museums, chemical industries abroad, governmental links, internet resources Search Internal search engine for the whole site and its
databases
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made the teachers more enthusiastic about using them with their students and helped them get more effective results. Thus, we promoted professional development programs that were directly connected to website implementa- tion, from short workshops to long-term courses for teachers from all over the country, and we published a teachers’ guide for using the website.
To know more about the educational effectiveness of the website’s con- tents, we followed its implementation though several research projects using different research tools. The most important and large-scale research focused on learning the topic of chemical bonding through web-based activities. In the following section we briefly present some parts of a three-year study and discuss them in terms of the impact it had on the evolution of the website.