Production of Chemistry Laboratory Class for Senior High School Freshmen

Chemistry laboratory class was produced for senior high school freshmen with the cooperation of university staffs, high school teachers and the university students. Although the students who will take the lab class are senior high school freshmen, we decided to prepare four experiments that are simple and have highly visible reactions or transformation. That is, 1) Water purification, 2) Surface modification, 3) Briggs-Rauscher reaction, and 4) Polymer synthesis and characterization. After the safety guideline and experiment instructions by the faculty staffs, two teaching assistants (TAs) supervised each experiment. Since taking a direct part in it will provide stronger impact than only being one who is just watching the experiment, all experiments contained some process that the high school students must handle the reagents, tools or the equipment, by themselves. Although, the operation performed by the students was limited to a series of simple actions, the various unique phenomena presented by the experiments impressed the students. The lab class was fruitful not only for high school students, but also good for university students. The lab class provided good opportunity for them to improve the abilities to teach and guide someone.