Nanochemistry as a Relevant Concept in Teaching Chemistry

Abstract

Recently, there has been a major effort to address challenges faced in chemical education by using ‘context’ as the basis for curriculum design and classroom teaching. The context-based approach is characterized by using societal, technical, or scientific contexts as the starting point for developing chemical understanding, with the intent of making chemical content more relevant to today's students. Using a context-based learning approach influences students’ interest and increases their motivation to study science as a product of contexts that are seen relevant to students’ lives. Nanotechnology applications are good candidates to be used as context for science education programs because they have clear connections to students’ everyday lives. This chapter presents activities, experiments, and ideas on how to incorporate nanoscience and nanotechnology aspects that are relevant to daily life when teaching chemistry. The proposed ideas are based on recent studies that aim to incorporate nanoscience and nanotechnology basic concepts into school science lessons and science courses for undergraduates and bridge the students’ pre-knowledge with modern and advanced science field and its applications.