Dr. Nicole James, Reed College
Seminar Title: "Doing interdisciplinary chemistry: Mapping materials chemistry skills and concepts"
Host: Matthew Wu, wu.6250@osu.edu
Zoom Link: https://osu.zoom.us/j/99096707342?pwd=FGrJ7q3zFWjLhPZcfHPtO9zTROC0DK.1&from=addon
Abstract: Materials chemistry is an essential part of efforts to address urgent societal challenges in areas such as energy, medicine, and sustainability. Materials chemistry is not a chemical subdiscipline, but rather an intersection between the disciplines of chemistry and materials science. Consequently, no one discipline has a holistic view of the core concepts and skills across all forms of materials chemistry work. This complicates instructors’ ability to provide exposure to materials chemistry within existing chemistry courses, and limits education researchers’ ability to study how students activate their chemistry knowledge in materials chemistry contexts. In this mixed-methods project, we identify and map the core concepts and skills used by academic materials chemistry researchers. Qualitative interviews with materials chemistry postdocs provide insight into the landscape of concepts and skills used in current research, which informs the development of a quantitative national survey. This presentation will discuss themes generated through the analysis of qualitative interviews, including areas of overlap with existing chemistry curricula and knowledge generation practices that diverge from “traditional” chemistry practices. These findings have implications for curricular design efforts and education research about interdisciplinary chemistry practices.
