Chemistry Dept. Plans Experimental Program

The Chemistry Department will begin a long-term educational experiment next fall with a new method of "integrated instruction," Frank H. Westheimer, chairman of the Department, announced yesterday. The Department will offer to a limited number of freshmen with advanced preparation a two-year course sequence comprising subjects now covered in three years by Chemistry 2, 20, 40a and 60.

If eventually put on a permanent basis, the course's integrated approach would constitute the first major innovation in the method of instruction in science since the establishment some fifty years ago of the present system of courses dealing solely with one field at a time, Westheimer noted.

Designed in part to take advantage of and encourage the recent improvements in the high school preparation of students in science and mathematics, the course will at first be limited to 25 freshmen who have had the equivalent of an introductory course in calculus and who have shown proficiency in high school chemistry and physics.

Entitied "Chemistry and Its Principles, and Integrated Sequence," the new courses, Chemistry 11 and 12, will cover quantitative analysis and inorganic, organic, and physical chemistry. Westheimer and William N. Lipscomb, Jr., professor of Chemistry, will teach Chemistry 11 next year. Together with the half-course Chemistry 40b, the sequence will prepare students for intermediate-level courses often not taken until graduate school.

Avoids Duplication

Members of the Department believe the integrated approach will avoid the duplication occurring with the present system and allow material to be taught in direct relationship to problems involving it. The Department hopes that the new approach will prove "more exciting" to the student, Westheimer declared.

Many in the Department believe the approach of the course will be more representative of actual work in chemistry. By devising Laboratory experiments that combine the methods and problems of several fields of chemistry, Westheimer hopes to "bring students closer to the way people do chemical research."

As an example of how the course might integrate the various branches of chemistry, Westheimer explained that the physical chemistry of distillation could be studied in conjunction with the organic chemistry problem of obtaining a pure compound.

The Department is limiting the size of the course, Westheimer explained, because of its experimental nature and in order to allow selection of a homogeneous class of well-prepared students. Selection will be made during Orientation Week on the basis of College Board and Advanced Placement Test results.

The course resulted from a re-evaluation of teaching in the Chemistry Department by a committee headed by Paul D. Bartlett, Erving Professor of Chemistry.