Chemistry Education as an Agent in Global Progress

The focus of the 2015 Gordon Research Conference on Chemistry Education Research and Practice is to elevate the need for chemical literacy through exploration of how theoretically and empirically driven chemistry education can advance global chemical literacy and agency. Regional and global concerns such as chemical weapons deactivation, prevention and cleanup of chemical spills in water supplies, ramifications of fossil fuel usage, and food and drug safety remind us daily that life in our modern world demands a level of chemical literacy of every adult. Chemists engage in addressing modern problems with solutions ranging from carbon sequestration to nanotechnology to designing for sustainability. Chemistry education includes the responsibility to educate the public, to aid in the professional development of teachers, and to teach students at all educational levels, both those who will and who will not become chemists. Citizens of the world must be able to use chemistry knowledge to make daily decisions, to understand the consequences of personal choices, and to engage in discourse about policies that impact both local and global scales. This meeting will bring together researchers and practitioners from academia, industry, informal science, and governmental and non-governmental agencies to address practical and theoretical issues related to the teaching and learning of chemistry relevant to a variety of educational contexts and levels, as well as for public understanding. Participants in the conference will be challenged to consider relationships between the content of the research discussed and local and global action that relies on chemistry knowledge.

The conference format includes invited plenary sessions, semi-structured poster sessions, and free time to interact and network with conferees. Several features of the conference create an atmosphere that is intended to invigorate professional connections and promote advancement of the field: daily forums with intense intellectual engagement, off-the-record discussion of unpublished work, free afternoons in an idyllic setting, common meals and dormitory accommodations, and a limit on participation (<160). All participants are expected to remain at the conference for its entirety.