Rationale
Booker T. Washington (BTW) is a world-class high school in Oklahoma under the administration of Tulsa Public School District. In 2009 and 2016, the school received the coveted distinction of being a Blue Ribbon School recognized by the United States government for being academically superior. The school is ranked as one of the top high schools in America. It was founded in 1913 to serve the citizens of the African-American community; Booker T. Washington was chosen in 1973 to be the vehicle for Tulsa's school desegregation program.3 The school composition is mainly African Americans with a significant representation of the White and Hispanic populations. In the last few years, there was an increment in the Hispanic population in the school. BTW high school is a high performing public magnet school that offers students the option of earning the International Baccalaureate Diploma upon completing a rigorous academic curriculum.
I teach Chemistry at Booker T. Washington high school in Tulsa, Oklahoma. There are four Chemistry course delivery levels: General Chemistry for 10-grade students, Advance Chemistry for 10-grade students who are planning to enroll AP (Advanced Placement) Chemistry when they are in 11 grade. AP Chemistry for 11-grade students and IBSL (International Baccalaureate Standard Level) and IBHL (International Baccalaureate Higher Level) for students in 11 and 12 grades, respectively. The main difference between those courses is that the level of depth those courses are covering different topics.
Although this Unit can be taught to students in grades 10, 11, and 12 who are taking Chemistry classes, the group of students who will benefit from this Unit is the International Baccalaureate (IB) students High Level (IBHL) and Lower Level (IBSL).
The High-Level International Bachelorate are enrolled first in the IBSL’s course; then, the students need to spend 2 years taking Chemistry class. The IBHL students will need to take an exam, participate in a research project, and write an essay. After the IBHL is completed, the students can receive credit hours when they are enrolled in some universities or colleges that recognized the IB program. The IBSL students only take one year of Chemistry classes and take an international test and write an essay about any topic they chose.
Under the Thermochemistry Chapter, some concepts, such as enthalpy, heat, endothermic, exothermic, Hess law, specific heat are addressed. However, very rarely are real examples of ways to produce energy using chemical reactions available to them, so in this Unit, we will focus mainly on energy production where chemical reactions are the primary sources of generation, among which we can cite those below. The sources of energy that the students will cover are Fossil Fuels, Nuclear Energy, Solar Energy, and the reaction of hydrogen with oxygen to produce water.
The previous four topics that the IBHL’ students need to choose as part of the IBHL final test, and they have to answer a free response based on any of these items: Energy Sources, Fossil Fuels, Nuclear fusion and fission, Solar Energy and the impact of those sources of energy in the environment, making emphasis in the global warming.
The IBSL students will have the opportunity of applying this Unit under the Thermochemistry chapter. They are required to write an extended essay on the topic they choose. Energy will be a suitable topic for them to write an essay, particularly at this point on time, where there are many concerns about the environmental impact of burning fossil fuels.
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