Integrating Web-based Learning to Make Industrial and Everyday Life Chemistry Accessible to High-school Chemistry Students

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the “General Chemistry and Industrial Chemistry for the Service of Mankind” website and its implementation in chemistry learning in Israel. The website has been free to use since its launch, always emphasizing equity and inclusion. Here we present its rationale, development, and evolution, including its adaptation to suit the emerging needs of teachers and students as a result of the continuous changes in the chemistry curricula during a period of more than 20 years. We present findings from our large-scale research assessing learning through online activities that were specifically designed by a constructivist approach to address better understanding of complicated topics using visualization tools and connecting content to real-world issues. We show evidence of increased effectiveness of learning through these online activities, compared to traditional learning, pertaining to the subject of “Chemical Bonding”. We also describe how the website evolved to support non-formal chemistry learning at the national level through the “We Have Chemistry!” projects competition, which intended, among other goals, to make context-based chemistry learning available to all. The unusual situation that arose due to the COVID-19 pandemic allowed us to appreciate the website’s contribution and its potential more fully.