Applying Chemistry to Society – Dr. Melissa Rhoten
I was a big fan of Chemistry in high school, so when it came to choose my science perspective, I definitely still wanted to stick with it. I love the math aspect of Chemistry, so even with us having to review the math concepts, I thrived in the class. Although I do love history, the math was almost a brain break from dates and facts I had in my two history classes.
As in the title, the class dealt with how chemistry is involved in different societal and environmental concepts, such as cell phones, recycling, or even global climate change and its causes. We looked into how cars run and how the chemicals and friction created can cause the release of different gases and toxins into the environment to ruin our different atmospheric layers, including the ozone.
One major thing we had was group projects on different issues. One project was the effect of DDT on the environment and humans and if it should be banned or not, and the other project was a slew of different topics, my topic being on the Paleo diet and its effectiveness. The topics were great topics to research, and I found the applications from the class proved to be very useful for my own personal life, but my group was less than satisfactory.
My group was composed of one person with a less than great work ethic, one person who was busy almost all the time, and me who was also busy almost all the time. The times we did get together to work were pretty unproductive and comprised of me saying things I felt like shouldn’t have to be said, such as “Just a little reminder that Wikipedia is actually not a reliable source.”
Our first project went pretty bad, and it was even submitted before I could go in and give my final approval on it. After it was submitted, I was too afraid to even see what it looked like so I never got to preview the final project and what exactly got submitted to the professor. Our second project we were left with the same groups, but I did take a bit more charge on how things should be organized and helped with editing and approving the final project.
My artifact is actually a final Civitae reflection required for the class from the university on the impact of collaboration within the course, which as I mentioned above, was slightly negative. I do discuss some other issues, but mention some positives on how collaboration can help in the class and in Civitae classes in general.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1b–UFZO3o8v5GgXOMsqlCzQA8VDiCE3fWiFLJaSL8fM/edit?usp=sharing