Dear Margaret,
I highly appreciate the content of your reply to my inquiry. I like how the suggested resources cross referenced materials science concepts with chemistry concepts. Our district also is concerned about the integrated chemistry curriculum regarding the inclusion of earth science standards. I do agree that these can be easily integrated in the materials science concepts.
I will check the resources in the ASM website as also suggested by Glenn above. I am a member of AACT and uses the curriculum materials posted there regularly. I will definitely look into the recordings of your webinar to get more insight as to how MS can very well be a chemistry credit. Finally, I will register for this month's teacher talk and connect with other teachers about the same topic.
Again, thank you for your valuable suggestions.
Sincerely,
Maria
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Maria Aguilar
Teacher
Sacramento City Unified School district
Elk Grove CA
9163955050
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Original Message:
Sent: 05-01-2023 23:09
From: Margaret Showalter
Subject: Materials Science Course Syllabus for Chemistry credit
Hi Maria
I am a Master Teacher for ASM Materials Camps for Teachers. Almost 20 years ago a group of us in my district did exactly that - we submitted and got approval from the district to teach a chemistry course that uses concepts from materials science.
I see that Glenn Daehn has already responded and pointed you towards this resource:
https://www.asmfoundation.org/teachers/resources/
Under the documents section, you will see a syllabus from our group's efforts. It is a bit dated but will at least show you one way of organizing a year of chemistry content around materials concepts.
I am attaching another document -- it is similar but shorter - so you can see our units at a glance.
You might notice that we have an "earth materials" unit. This was due to a unique situation in our district at the time. The administration was concerned that students taking a traditional Bio-Chem-Physics sequence were not covering the state's earth science standards. So they added some of these standards to each of these courses. At first we thought that was a weird approach. But it actually worked really well for our materials-focused chemistry course as we used it to talk about natural resources, where materials come from, and the processing needed to turn those resources into consumer materials.
Are you a member of AACT? Last month another Master Teacher and I did a webinar (March 7) on using Materials Science to teach chemistry concepts. If you are a member, you should be able to view the recording of that webinar and the slide deck at the AACT website. Not a syllabus, but you may find it useful as you create your own syllabus.
Finally I'd like to invite you to attend our Teacher Talk session next Tuesday May 9 at 7pm ET/6CT/5MT/4PT. This is an opportunity to talk to other teachers and share ideas. At this months session I know we had another teacher who said she is planning to offer a Chemistry of Materials course starting in the fall.
You should be getting invitations to Teacher Talk - if you are not let me know and I'll see if we can get that zoom link to you.
Good luck with your efforts to get this course approved. Let me know if I can be of further assistance.
Margaret Showalter
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Margaret Showalter
Albuquerque NM
(505) 237-9561
Original Message:
Sent: 04-27-2023 11:00
From: Maria Aguilar
Subject: Materials Science Course Syllabus for Chemistry credit
I would like to appeal to everyone if you would be so kind to share with me a course syllabus that I can submit to our administration. I hope to propose a high school materials science course as a chemistry credit for the school year 2023-2024. I would appreciate your help.
Sincerely,
Maria Aguilar