e-Malaria: the schools malaria project

e-Malaria (http://emalaria.soton.ac.uk/) aims to bring together 16-18 year old school students with university researchers to explain aspects of computational drug design using the example of the hunt for a new anti-Malaria drug. Malaria kills a child every 30 seconds, and 40% of the world's population lives in countries where the disease is endemic. Resistance to existing drugs is increasing and there is a growing need for new compounds. This challenge is being offered to school students who will use a distributed drug search and selection system via a Web interface to design potential drugs. The project makes use of industrial code for the docking study (GOLD) and as such presents valuable lessons in how to achieve the integration of industrial programs into a free outreach environment. The results of the trials are displayed in an accessible manner, giving students an opportunity for discussion and debate both with peers and with university contacts. The initial project has been extended to provide a similar challenge for undergraduate chemists as part of a chemical informatics course at a level relevant to more advances chemical skills

Representational classroom practices that contribute to students' conceptual and representational understanding of chemical bonding

Understanding bonding is fundamental to success in chemistry. A number of alternative conceptions related to chemical bonding have been reported in the literature. Research suggests that many alternative conceptions held by chemistry students result from previous teaching; if teachers are explicit in the use of representations and explain their content-specific forms and functions, this might be avoided. The development of an understanding of and ability to use multiple representations is crucial to students' understanding of chemical bonding. This paper draws on data from a larger study involving two Year 11 chemistry classes (n = 27, n = 22). It explores the contribution of explicit instruction about multiple representations to students' understanding and representation of chemical bonding. The instructional strategies were documented using audio-recordings and the teacher-researcher's reflection journal. Pre-test-post-test comparisons showed an improvement in conceptual understanding and representational competence. Analysis of the students' texts provided further evidence of the students' ability to use multiple representations to explain macroscopic phenomena on the molecular level. The findings suggest that explicit instruction about representational form and function contributes to the enhancement of representational competence and conceptual understanding of bonding in chemistry. However, the scaffolding strategies employed by the teacher play an important role in the learning process. This research has implications for professional development enhancing teachers' approaches to these aspects of instruction around chemical bonding