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Linking the Macro with the Submicro Levels of Chemistry: Demonstrations and Experiments that can Contribute to Active/Meaningful/Conceptual Learning

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Learning with Understanding in the Chemistry Classroom

Abstract

One of the most important ideas about meaningful learning in chemistry—the triple nature of chemical concepts is further developed in this chapter by Tsaparlis. His text entitled “Linking the Macro with the Submicro Levels of Chemistry: Demonstrations and Experiments that Can Contribute to Active/Meaningful/Conceptual Learning” discusses the chemistry as a multirepresentational structure. Studies have shown that students have great difficulties when trying to grasp concepts at the submicro level. In this chapter, a set of demonstrations and experiments is proposed that, if properly used in teaching by means of active-learning methodology, can contribute to meaningful learning and conceptual understanding of the particulate concepts of matter by properly linking the macro with the submicro levels. Different laboratory work is presented, and the importance of linking different levels of chemical concepts presentations is proposed.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to express my gratitude to Professor Alex H. Johnstone for his work and ideas, and the discussions I have had with him, all of which largely influenced this work. I also thank the two anonymous reviewers who made numerous constructive suggestions that contributed greatly to the improvement of this chapter.

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  1. Department of Chemistry, University of Ioannina, Ioannina, Greece

    Georgios Tsaparlis

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  1. Georgios Tsaparlis
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Correspondence to Georgios Tsaparlis .

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  1. University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Iztok Devetak

  2. University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Saša Aleksij Glažar

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Tsaparlis, G. (2014). Linking the Macro with the Submicro Levels of Chemistry: Demonstrations and Experiments that can Contribute to Active/Meaningful/Conceptual Learning. In: Devetak, I., Glažar, S. (eds) Learning with Understanding in the Chemistry Classroom. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4366-3_3

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