Notes about teaching chemistry in America

Abstract

A brief review of the American system of chemical education, at the high-school to junior college level, with emphasis on the content and format of teaching lab experiments. According to the data published by the US Department of Education (ED), chemistry is not a mandatory discipline and is offered in less than one half of all the high schools nationwide. Real number of students taking chemistry is even much lesser, around 20% of all the high-schoolers. There is no national standard of the chemistry curriculum or syllabus, and the content and level of the high-school chemistry course varies in different states and localities of the US. The quality of education in different disciplines is largely supported by the system of voluntary accreditation, in the case of chemistry, by the American Chemical Society, which also provides a national test as part of such an accreditation. Curriculum structure in American high school is very different from the Russian one. Each subject is studied in a concentrated form, during not more than two terms, at any of the four years of high school, from 9 th to 12 th grade, and independently of other disciplines, such as physics. Lab experiment is a mandatory part of any high-school chemistry.