Examining the Ability of Arts and Chemistry Integrations to Improve Undergraduate Education

Abstract

Chemistry and the arts have more to offer each other than often assumed. The integrations possible between the various arts based fields and chemistry are largely unexplored and present an opportunity to improve the education of both fields while creating more well-rounded students. There was a distinctive lack of research focusing on creating opportunities for undergraduate students from either chemistry or the arts to have exposure to the other field(s) in pure form (exposure that is unrelated to the student’s own field). This thesis aims to discover and develop opportunities for arts chemistry integration work that would benefit both chemistry and arts students through focused active learning opportunities in the other field. This manuscript style thesis will focus on two such opportunities of arts chemistry integration, one for arts students, and one for chemistry students. The first project (Chapter 2) brought arts based undergraduate students into graduate level chemistry labs to work on collaborative projects. The second project (Chapter 3) analyzed opportunities for arts integration in undergraduate organic chemistry classes to aid student learning. The first project found the experience built students’ soft skills, allowed for skill development within the students’ own fields, and increased students’ confidence. The second project found that organic chemistry classes followed a passive teaching approach during lectures that did not support the development of visuospatial and creativity skills (skills which arts based pedagogy is known for developing) needed for understanding the content. The implication from both projects in combination, is that active learning and focused arts chemistry integration opportunities can provide valuable skill development for both groups of students within their own fields. This makes these experiences worthwhile to investigate and develop further.