Developing Dartmouth General Chemistry Curriculum toward Energy and the Environment

Our proposed project is to develop a new approach to General Chemistry education at Dartmouth. A working knowledge of fundamental chemical principles must underlie any serious consideration of energy use and development, anthropogenic forcing of the climate, and future solutions to the changing climate. With the support of the Irving Institute, we will significantly alter the lab portion of the general chemistry course and pilot a new preliminary general chemistry course. We will begin by adapting the best examples and practices of other chemistry progams to our own specific institutional needs. We will seek input from students and faculty and draw upon the resources of the Learning Design and Technology staff at Dartmouth College.  The end result will be a redesigned lab curriculum for general chemistry where the basic principles of chemistry will be reinforced by experimental work on socially relevant issues.  Similarly, the new General Chemistry course will reinforce basic quantitative and problem solving skills while illustrating the relevance of the fundamentals of chemistry to real world environmental problems. Our hope is that these initiatives will strengthen the connections between the foundational knowledge of general chemistry and the most pressing, complicated challenges of our time, empowering rigorous, thoughtful leaders.