Issues in VCE Chemistry - A Greater Debate

[thushan]

So. Little Paulsterio over here reckons he can get one up on me by drawing attention to Physics in that other board over there. As we all know, Chemistry is a hell of a lot cooler than Physics. That said, I would reckon that VCE Chemistry, as decent a course it is, doesn't do justice to the awesomeness of the subject - just ask ol' Mao.

So! What improvements could we make to the course?

[Bhootnike]

So. Little Paulsterio over here reckons he can get one up on me by drawing attention to Physics in that other board over there. As we all know, Chemistry is a hell of a lot cooler than Physics. That said, I would reckon that VCE Chemistry, as decent a course it is, doesn't do justice to the awesomeness of the subject - just ask ol' Mao.

So! What improvements could we make to the course?

not exactly the course, but..
we could get better teachers. 

[pi]

I can't recall too many issues with it tbh, it's at a good enough standard for most chem students I guess.

[appianway]

Maybe more pchem style proofs? Otherwise it's fine.

[ShiCarnt]

the pracs I did were terrible and boring and having pre prac tests count towards sac marks were evil and caused me to underperform (schools fault probably). the actual content of the course, however, is pretty good

[jaydee]

chem was def one of the most enjoyable vce subjects ive done (besides spesh) but the only negative was learning the energy resources (susatinable & non sustainable) and other side topics like forensic analysis and protein markers etc. They weren't a major factor in year 12 but I just dislike pointless fillers in the course...

[thushan]

Yeah - let's unpick:

Gravimetric and Volumetric Analysis - well taught. I would like to see a stronger emphasis on laboratory technique though - filtration and quantitative transfer techniques.

Instrumental Analysis - also quite well taught. That said, I think that IR and NMR spectra could be made more difficult (in the exam).

Organic Chemistry - my main beef is with this section. The content should be a hell of a lot more advanced in Year 12. Move the organic chemical reactions in Year 12 to Year 11, then insert more advanced material here.

Biochemistry - generally quite decent here.

Reaction Kinetics - generally decent, although I would like to see (if there were a Chemistry Advanced with Methods/Spesh as prereqs) quantitative reaction kinetics taught here.

Equilibria - generally well taught, although I have a beef with their explanation of Le Chatelier's Principle. I also think they should couple this to thermochem.

Industrial Chemistry - remove nitric acid and ammonia and do only sulphuric acid.

Energy Sources - throw this out. Please.

Thermochem - pretty okay, although they should introduce concept of internal energy, because what they teach about bomb calorimetry is often quite frankly wrong.

Electrochem - quite solid.


So...really my main beef is with Organic Chem.

[paulsterio]

I'm probably going to use the line which people use on physics on chemistry - it doesn't have enough maths and it spends too much time on aspects of the course which are, more or less, quite boring.

If I were to restructure the course for Chemistry, I would say move 60 - 70% of what is covered in Y11 to Y7 - Y10 science.

1) Definitely move the stuff on the period table (U1 AOS1) to earlier years
2) Move the majority of bonding (U1 AOS2) to earlier years - spend a bit of time reviewing in Y11, but bulk should already be known
3) Get rid of JJ Thompson and his cronies, if students are interested in history, they can read about it on the internet.
4) Move properties of water to earlier years - like how it has a high latent heat...etc.
5) Move all the "Green Chemistry" stuff over to earlier years or have it PURELY as a research assignment/project rather than a whole unit.
6) Introduce basic reactions and stoichiometric principles (i.e. moles) in earlier years.

So Unit 1 would end up something like this:

U1AOS1 - Review of Periodic Table, Bonding and basic stoichiometry
U1AOS2 - Acid/Base and Redox Reactions

This frees up a lot of room to work with other stuff in U2 because we can get rid of "green chemistry" and stuff. I think we should move a lot of the organic chemistry in Y12 to Y11 and also a lot of the analytical chemistry stuff.

U2AOS1 - Organic Chemistry + Organic Pathways from Y12
U2AOS2 - Analytical Chemistry - Gravimetric, Volumetric and introduce more LAB TECHNIQUES

Now we're left with U3/4. I think my main gripe with U3 chemistry revolves around:
 
1) Mass spec, IR, NMR and chromatography can be answered by memorising a few key facts. Not good.
2) Organic chemistry too easy
3) Biochemistry is a little lost - cover it properly - i.e. include glucose metabolic pathways...etc. or maybe we should relegate all of biochem to VCE Biology.

And my main gripe with U4 chemistry revolves around:

1) Reaction Kinetics and Equilibria - too qualitative, make it more quantitative - i.e. include more calculaations, make it harder than "increasing the temperature will increase the reaction rate because no. of collisions increase and any particular collision is more likely to have energy surpassing the activation energy barrier" - like, we're just learning phrases!

2) Industrial chemistry - bad - have one chemical and integrate it into reaction kinetics and equilibria.

3) Energy sources, agree with Thushan, absolute waste of time, though it's easy

4) Thermochem/Electrochem - not baaaaad, but I think students don't really understand enthalpy properly, I think internal energy, Gibbs' free energy as well as helmholtz free energy should be introduced as well. Like I don't think a lot of students would understand how a reaction can be exothermic, but endergonic.

So U3/4 should be something like:

U3AOS1 - Review of analytical chem from Y11 + More detailed instrumental analysis techniques.
U3AOS2 - New organic chemistry stuff
U4AOS1 - Physical chem, plus changes
U4AOS2 - Thermo and Electrochem, not bad, but with changes.

And final gripe, VCE should be like IB, a 2 year course, not a 1 year course. Having U3-4 based assessment only doesn't allow enough room for movement with designing courses.

P.S. my debate is better thush xoxox <3

[thushan]

On the whole, your suggestion is good. However:

"1) Mass spec, IR, NMR and chromatography can be answered by memorising a few key facts. Not good."

Bullshit . IR, NMR and mass spec are very problem-solving oriented. Chromatography is really application of simple chemical principles. And that's the point - a few key ideas, and the rest is deductive reasoning. That's good.

[Nobby]

Chuck in some organic reaction mechanisms, MO/VSEPR theory and transition metal chemistry?

[thushan]

Chuck in some organic reaction mechanisms, MO/VSEPR theory and transition metal chemistry?

YES. Hahah Nobby, you are my little protege. Have fun in the FSE. Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you. IT IS A F**KING BITCH.

[Mao]

I actually think the VCE course is pretty damn well organised. I think the level of mathematics is just right (not all chemistry revolves around physical modelling, that specialisation can happen later). The appeal of chemistry is that with a few conceptually simple principles (e.g. Bohr's model and electron sharing), we can begin to explain a LOT of physical behaviour of materials, and that is very cool.

A few things that could be improved:

- More collaboration with universities. It's a shame to see that VCE pracs invariably involves a titration or something boring like that. Students have very little exposure to actual analytical instruments. These instruments aren't very expensive (the ones useful for VCE would probably cost ~$100k per set, which is very affordable if the cost is shared between schools). I believe these instrument laboratories should be setup at most regional university campuses, and students should get much more exposure to practical analytical chemistry.

- Same thing for organic chemistry. There's a lot of organic chemistry which doesn't involve deadly toxins. Some proper organic reactions would be nice to put the reaction pathways into context. Glassware can be expensive, but again with inter-school collaboration facilitated at a university, this is very achievable.

- Computational chemistry. This is going to be a major part of fundamental chemistry in the future. Leasing computer time from Victorian supercomputers isn't expensive (only a few hundred dollars would satisfy a whole class). We should give students the opportunity to actually explore atomic orbitals, what a covalent bond looks like, geometry optimisation (e.g. 4 electron pairs --> tetrahedron), or even how a reaction really looks at the quantum scale. These I believe will be very worthwhile exercises that are truly horizon broadening.

[Edward21]

I actually think the VCE course is pretty damn well organised. I think the level of mathematics is just right (not all chemistry revolves around physical modelling, that specialisation can happen later). The appeal of chemistry is that with a few conceptually simple principles (e.g. Bohr's model and electron sharing), we can begin to explain a LOT of physical behaviour of materials, and that is very cool.

A few things that could be improved:

- More collaboration with universities. It's a shame to see that VCE pracs invariably involves a titration or something boring like that. Students have very little exposure to actual analytical instruments. These instruments aren't very expensive (the ones useful for VCE would probably cost ~$100k per set, which is very affordable if the cost is shared between schools). I believe these instrument laboratories should be setup at most regional university campuses, and students should get much more exposure to practical analytical chemistry.

- Same thing for organic chemistry. There's a lot of organic chemistry which doesn't involve deadly toxins. Some proper organic reactions would be nice to put the reaction pathways into context. Glassware can be expensive, but again with inter-school collaboration facilitated at a university, this is very achievable.

- Computational chemistry. This is going to be a major part of fundamental chemistry in the future. Leasing computer time from Victorian supercomputers isn't expensive (only a few hundred dollars would satisfy a whole class). We should give students the opportunity to actually explore atomic orbitals, what a covalent bond looks like, geometry optimisation (e.g. 4 electron pairs --> tetrahedron), or even how a reaction really looks at the quantum scale. These I believe will be very worthwhile exercises that are truly horizon broadening.

My chem Y12 class is going to (I think?) Latrobe University, or Melbourne? For spectroscopy, is that normal; or should I feel special

[Starlight]

Organic Chemistry - my main beef is with this section. The content should be a hell of a lot more advanced in Year 12. Move the organic chemical reactions in Year 12 to Year 11, then insert more advanced material here.

I agree with this. I saw quite a few struggle when it came to the organic chemistry component of chemistry 2 at UoM.

[Mao]

My chem Y12 class is going to (I think?) Latrobe University, or Melbourne? For spectroscopy, is that normal; or should I feel special

Melbourne uni has been doing the Outreach program for several years now, where schools come out to use our analytical instruments (chromatographs, spectrophotometers, etc). I've been teaching this for the past couple of weeks.

Though, we only end up getting a fraction of the schools through this program (ballpark estimate ~50 schools out of the ~500), while ideally every chemistry student should get a chance to experience this.