CHILE
Chemical Information Lectures and Exercises
MUG'03, Dave Weininger, Green Chile Productions

Index

1. The education of chemists vs. the practice of chemistry
2. Current chemistry education is badly outdated
3. Not subtle. Pervasive. Unfortunate.
4. What should be done? What can be done?
5. The CHILE lecture concept
6. CHILE lecture concept, continued
7. The CHILE experiment
8. Film/TV studios are not well-suited for educational lectures
9. Implementation
10. The MEDUSA experiment

1.  A disconnect has developed between the education of chemists and the practice of chemistry

• Chemistry is largely becoming an information science
  • First computer appeared on ACS expo floor < 20 years ago
  • Most ACS papers/posters/exhibits now have informatic aspects

• Very few undergraduate programs teach chemical information
  • Cheminfo is not integrated into normal chemistry coursework
  • Chemical information courses are not offered
  • There are only a handful of exceptions
  • Library/information science departments rather than chemistry

2.  Current chemistry education is badly outdated

• Historically good approach: teach the molecular model
  • Like "Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny." (Haeckel's Lie)
    In chemistry, it's Bohr, Huckel, LCAO, MO ...
  • "Left brain" learns about molecules, the hands learn to manipulate them
  • This approach has has worked well for as long as we can remember
• Undergraduate chemistry curriculum selects for four critera:
  • Good memory - chemistry is an information-rich discipline
  • Good spacial perception - molecules are 3-dimensional
  • Not afraid of poisons and fire - not too many lab fires
  • Environmental insensitivity - some people can't stand the stink
  These are the criteria needed to be a chemist in 1900.
• We're teaching the right stuff in the wrong way
  • A chemist with great brain power can know perhaps 10K structures, 1K reactions, 5 stereocenters
  • A chemist with a computer can know 20M structures, 3.5M reactions, 1000's of stereocenters.
• We're selecting the wrong people
  • Selecting for human qualities such as memory, spacial perception
  • Selecting against people for whom the computer is extension of their brain
  • In this sense, MUG/RPGs are great training for being a chemist.

3.  Not subtle. Pervasive. Unfortunate.

• There's nothing subtle about the current approach
  • Regurgitate 100 structures and reactions in a closed book exam.
  • Recognize products of an SN2 displacement.
  • Demonstrate that you can perform a cookbook experiment in a lab.
  • If you can do these things you can be a chemist.
  • If not, you should look for a different major.
• Secondary and graduate education have similar problems
  • High school coursework introduces vocabulary, concepts, labwork
    providing good chemistry courses is relatively expensive
  • Graduate work is becoming ever more project/goal-oriented
    training yesterday's cowboys vs. today's team players
• Consequences are already apparent
  • Team-oriented chemists with cheminformatics competence appear to be in short supply.
  • Even in today's tight job market, we get lead-queries for such hires ~weekly.

4.  What should be done? What can be done?

• Do nothing, hope for the best
  • Leave it to the educators, it's their problem.
  • Hope that more resources are dedicated to science education.
  • Expect that tomorrow's chemists will appear despite the system.
• Positive corporate influence on education
  • Communicate needs to professors, schools.
  • Research and teaching grants at local universities
  • Support traineeships, summer internships
  • Donatation of old equipment to high school science labs
• Participate actively
  • Interact with students directly: guest lecture, counselling
  • Chemistry class lab tour with Q/A session
  • Write/create/present a CHILE lecture!

5.  The CHILE lecture concept

• Real, didactic, useful, for-credit lectures
  • 30 x 30 min formal lectures
  • Each lecture introduces one idea
  • Not "Apted interview movie", not "PBS Special"
• To be deployed in real-life education environments
  • Lectures as standard DVD-video movies
  • Lecture notes
  • Labs (via server programs on DVD)
  • Lab notes
  • Quizzes and test questions
  • Extras
• Multi-functional
  • Useful supplement to normal chemistry coursework.
  • With text, forms basis for chemical information course.

6.  CHILE lecture concept, continued

• Designed not only to inform but to also inspire
  • Recognize that inspiration is a form of emotional communication
  • Emotional content is more important than informational content
  • Main Hollywood-developed trick: film presence feels real
  • Hands, head, face, mouth, eyes. Molecules too.
  • Appeal to both students and professors
• The most compelling stories are reality-based
  • Ideally, each lecture will be presented by a person who gave their life to that idea.
  • This is not always possible due to logistical factors such as health.
  • This creates something of an imperative.

7.  The CHILE experiment

• Hollywood's main trick is film presence
  • A "film presence" is usually a scripted character played by an actor, but not always (e.g., documentaries).
  • If enough things are done right, audience will emotionally react to a film presence as if that person were really there.
  • Reaction is not intellectual, i.e., "willing suspension of disbelief".
  • E.g., when film character is hurt, audience cries; succeed/rejoice, threatened/fear, fumble/laugh, etc.
  • Plenty of things can go wrong and break the spell, e.g., cinematography, sound, lighting, dialog, acting, boom/props, continuity, etc.
• One question: Can this be extended to the teacher-student inspirational experience?
• Another question: Can this be part of the transfer of our intellectual resources from one generation to the next?
• The answers to these questions are not known.
  • Most educational videos and multimedia learning systems are low-budget and goal-oriented where test scores are the goal. Inspiration is not the goal, i.e., they don't even try.
  • High-quality science presentations are almost universally oriented to providing a certain kind of entertainment with wide appeal. E.g., interviews with famous scientists for a market of viewers who are generally interested in science.
  • Some integrative educational experiments are in progress, e.g., USC's Multimedia Literacy program.
  • Our stakes are different (higher) than with, e.g., feature films

8.  Film/TV studios are not well-suited for educational lectures

• Sound stages are high-stress environments
  • Alpha-male heirachy: up to 5 directors, 20 crew
  • "Professional" means "produce great work in toxic environment"
  • This is a way of saying, "The end justifies the means."

• Sound stages are physically challenging environments
  • Hour(s) of costume/makeup, hour(s) of waiting around
  • 20KW of light in face, "Don't squint, act naturally!"
  • Director says, "Now give me your best work."
  • Actors can do it, retired chemistry professors probably can't

9.  Implementation

• Massive volume, high production values
  • Today's students are incredibly savvy wrt production values
  • High resolution 16:9 video, high quality audio is needed
  • 30 x 30 min lectures + extras ~ 1000-1200 min of final cut
  • Translates to ~10,000 min of raw footage (think 10 feature films)
  • Need TV-like production efficiency with film-like postproduction

• Purpose-designed studio
  • Gentle, comfortable and low-stress environment
  • Self-paced by presenter using their own words
  • Low "ante" for both training and shooting
  • The means and the ends are the same thing
  • Slides

• Technical solutions
  • Is modern audio/video technology the silver bullet?
  • "Zero crew" shoot requires novel approaches to movie-making
  • New lighting: adjustable, cool, photographically neutral
  • Digital audio from the pro-music world
  • Broadcast video from the ENG world
  • Novel self-paced teleprompting
  • Small chromakey stage for lectures, raytraced studio/key
  • Saving grace: general-purpose sound stage is not needed

10.  The MEDUSA experiment

• Is this stuff accessible to high school students?
  • CHILE oriented to "central" undergraduate education
  • Suitable also for advanced and postgraduate coursework
  • Can/should high school students also be target audience?
  • Reality check.

• Jonah Wagner, 17, 11th grader
  • Interested in chemistry
  • Learned SMILES from website at 16
  • Required to do 1-month independent project
  • "Likes action movies"

• What can Jonah do?
  • Given iMac, camera, bicycle, CRC, access to research databases
  • Tasked to build/test/document annotated chemical database
  • Expected to research molecular structures
  • Write/perform script for short movie describing project
  • Mini-movie will be project report, also possible CHILE DVD "extra"
  • How hard can that be?

• Results
  • Jonah accomplished project, easily.
  • Week 1 get situated, 2-3 data entry, 4 report/movie.
  • medusa is a "toy" database, but the process and workflow was real
  • Mini-movie was written and practiced in 2-3 days, shot and produced in a single day.
  • Note information content in the audio (high-def needed)