TY - JOUR
T1 - Current Chemistry Investigators (CCI)
T2 - Development and Evaluation of a Scientist in a Classroom Electrochemistry Workshop
AU - O’Donoghue, John
AU - Doménech, Natalia García
AU - McArdle, Fiona
AU - Connolly, Mary
AU - Lang, Yvonne
AU - McGoldrick, Niamh
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors. Published by American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.
PY - 2023/10/10
Y1 - 2023/10/10
N2 - Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, school students suffered from a reduction in opportunities to connect with higher education institutions, meet scientific role models in person, discuss scientific career options, and carry out hands-on practical laboratory activities. Current Chemistry Investigators (CCI) is a successful electrochemistry-based STEM career intervention program, developed and evaluated through a co-creation process with teachers and students. The goals of CCI are 2-fold: first, to provide school students with career advice through tangible scientific role models and, second, to provide real-world context for the fundamentals of electrochemistry through hands-on activities. Herein, the development of a novel electro-analytical workshop from concept through to delivery with over a thousand students having taken part to date is reported. Students are tasked with solving why a battery malfunctioned through quantitative and qualitative analyses of an electrolyte using conductivity meters. Student feedback is also gathered anonymously through the use of a classroom response system (also known as “clickers”). Together with feedback from teachers, a robust evaluation is presented to measure the impact of providing tangible scientific role models and the usefulness of the workshop.
AB - Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, school students suffered from a reduction in opportunities to connect with higher education institutions, meet scientific role models in person, discuss scientific career options, and carry out hands-on practical laboratory activities. Current Chemistry Investigators (CCI) is a successful electrochemistry-based STEM career intervention program, developed and evaluated through a co-creation process with teachers and students. The goals of CCI are 2-fold: first, to provide school students with career advice through tangible scientific role models and, second, to provide real-world context for the fundamentals of electrochemistry through hands-on activities. Herein, the development of a novel electro-analytical workshop from concept through to delivery with over a thousand students having taken part to date is reported. Students are tasked with solving why a battery malfunctioned through quantitative and qualitative analyses of an electrolyte using conductivity meters. Student feedback is also gathered anonymously through the use of a classroom response system (also known as “clickers”). Together with feedback from teachers, a robust evaluation is presented to measure the impact of providing tangible scientific role models and the usefulness of the workshop.
KW - Electrochemistry
KW - Outreach
KW - Researchers
KW - Secondary Schools
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85172867669&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1021/acs.jchemed.3c00515
DO - 10.1021/acs.jchemed.3c00515
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85172867669
SN - 0021-9584
VL - 100
SP - 4138
EP - 4146
JO - Journal of Chemical Education
JF - Journal of Chemical Education
IS - 10
ER -