L’ACS redefineix la Química Física (a nivell de grau)

He vist que investigadors vinculats a l’American Chemical Society han publicat al Journal of Chemical Education una nova descripció del contingut de la Química Física per als ensenyaments de la Química. Aquesta descripció es fa a quatre nivells, i segueix la que s’ha fet de química general, química orgànica i química inorgànica. És bo veure el punt de vista de l’ACS sobre què cal ensenyar (o sobre què es podria ensenyar) de Química Física.

The ACS Examinations Institute has been developing Anchoring Concepts Content Maps to provide an organizational template for the four-year undergraduate chemistry curriculum. In order to accomplish this goal, specific subdisciplinary versions of the map share the two top levels but distinguish themselves at the bottom two levels which contain finer-grained content details. This structure has been refined and vetted over a number of meetings and workshops. This paper presents the four levels of the content map for physical chemistry.

L’article parla també del contingut matemàtic de la Química Física, que d’una forma moderna s’extèn a la visualització de dades i a la modelizació.

One challenging aspect of mapping the content of physical chemistry with an eye toward assessment lies in the mathematical concepts that are part of the course. These mathematical aspects are critical to the development of models in all areas of physical chemistry and as such may merit test items to assess student understanding. From the perspective of the ACS-EI, an individual test item related to this type of mathematics may test the mathematical reasoning and not specifically apply that reasoning to a physical system. This type of assessment is commonly related to interpretations of graphical information, and as a result the idea of representing chemical and physical systems with mathematical models can often be found within anchoring concept 10, which is centered on visualizing and using representations.

L’esquema de la Química Física es pot trobar en aquest pdf, seguint les tres parts habituals (cinètica, termodinàmica, mecànica quàntica), i deu apartats, l’últim d’ells anomenat “visualitzacions”. En anglés és Physical Chemistry Anchoring Concepts Content Map. Cada concepte forma part de quatre nivells. Per exemple, VII.d.4.b

  • VII. Kinetics: Chemical changes have a time scale over which they occur
  • D. An elementary reaction requires that the reactants collide (interact) and have both enough energy and appropriate orientation of colliding particles for the reaction to occur
  • 4.  Collision theory and transition state theory provide numerical models relating molecular scale dynamics to macroscopic reaction rates
  • d. Transition state theory assumes that reactants reach a quasi-equilibrium with the activated complex in order to derive the expression for the rate of reaction.