Research in Chemistry Education

Jan Apotheker; John Bradley

doi:10.1515/ci.2014.36.2.30a

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Research in Chemistry Education

Jan Apotheker and John Bradley

Published/Copyright: March 27, 2014

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From the journal Chemistry International Volume 36 Issue 2

On the occasion of the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the African Union, the Federation of African Societies of Chemistry (FACS) organized the first African Conference on Research in Chemistry Education. The conference was held in the same venue where seven years ago the FACS was founded, the UNECA conference center in Addis Ababa.

Around 150 registered participants attended the conference, with invited speakers from USA, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Turkey, Japan, Greece, Norway, the Netherlands, and Poland.

The conference marks an important step for chemistry education in Africa. Chemistry education is an important factor in meeting the challenges humankind faces in the coming years. Conferences where people can exchange their experiences and research are vital for the growth and improvement of chemistry education. The organizers, Professor Temechegn Engida from Ethiopia and Professor Farouk Fahmy from Egypt are to be commended for taking this initiative.

From IUPAC, Leiv Sydnes, chair of CHEMRAWN, and Jan Apotheker, secretary of CCE, were present. At the opening session Jan Apotheker was able to congratulate the organizers on behalf of IUPAC.

The conference ran 5-7 December 2013. The use of ICT was one of the main themes in the conference with interesting contributions from sources as far apart as the USA, South Africa, and Japan. Subjects ranged from the use of cell phones, apps for smart phones to special presentation software. Visualization was also an interesting topic where specific software was used to demonstrate chemical reactions.

As was the main idea of course there were also contributions from local chemistry education researchers. They gave us some interesting insights in developments and challenges in chemistry education both at the university level as well as the high school level.

One does not always realize that the access to literature, instruments like Sci-finder—but more importantly chemicals—is not a matter of course as it is in most developed countries.

Despite some organizational hurdles the conference was a success. During the conference dinner the organizers introduced participants to the Ethiopian culture and they were not only able to sample the Ethiopian cuisine, but were also introduced to Ethiopian music and dance.

For the continuing development of chemistry education and research in chemistry education it is very important that this conference will be continued every two year in the future. At the closing of the conference Johannesburg and Egypt were indicated as possible venues for the second ACRICE.

Published Online: 2014-03-27

Published in Print: 2014-03

Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/ci.2014.36.2.30a