Exploring Everyday Chemistry

The project brought together enthusiastic academic and administrative staff, not only with expertise in chemistry, but also areas ranging from online teaching to marketing. Working with chemistry undergraduates helped ensure we selected engaging topics and effectively facilitated the course over the summer vacations. Our common goal was to bring chemistry to life to as wide an audience as possible. We wanted to present the relevance of organic chemistry and buck how it is often perceived, by showing what a fun and interesting topic it is.

Creating a course that satisfied learners with a range of chemical expertise, was particularly challenging. The course is aimed at pre-university chemistry students, but we also wanted novices to make progress and gain an understanding of the importance of everyday chemistry. Novices may not understand the fine details of the mechanism of action of a penicillin, but they can recognise why the chemical structures of these antibiotics all include a 4-membered ring.

We will continue to refresh and update the course content. We aim to convince more chemistry teachers to recommend the course to their students, to help them prepare for their chosen university course and spice up their personal statement. Also, our publicity has targeted a UK audience, but each year learners from up to 150 countries have enrolled on the course. We are keen to develop our publicity to grow the number of international learners.

The resources have benefitted a range of learners, particularly pre-university students who can learn more about everyday chemistry, helping to bring their school chemistry syllabus to life. The course allows them to sample university teaching and research, carry out experiments in the kitchen, and share and discuss their results with other learners. The positive impact of the course has been evidenced by the personal statements from well over 100 UCAS applicants who have applied to York to study chemistry – these applicants have specifically mentioned the course in their personal statements, and they used the course content as evidence of their wider reading and preparation for making the transition to university.

Chemistry is the central science and so interlinks with many other scientific disciplines, from archaeology, to environmental, materials, nanotechnology, and pharmaceutical science. Therefore, there are many career options that are open to a chemist. This includes working in jobs to tackle some of the planet’s most urgent challenges, from sustainable energy supplies to improving agricultural processes and tackling infectious diseases like coronavirus.

Our motivation for the course has been to showcase everyday applications of chemistry that bring the subject to life and get learners of all ages and backgrounds thinking more about the important role that chemistry plays in our lives. We wanted to engage novices and encourage them to learn more about the fundamentals of chemistry, and particularly excite prospective university applicants about the subject, including showing what a career in chemistry can lead on to. Crucially, we wanted a distinctive and engaging approach, that demonstrated our enthusiasm for the subject – if you have a passion for the subject, your learners are more likely to show a passion for learning.

Increasing engagement and accessibility to chemical sciences inspires more people to become chemists which hopefully would result in ground-breaking discoveries such as new drugs, more sustainable ways to grow food and ways to cut global emissions and help save the planet. Such discoveries can make everyday life more efficient, impacting everyone for the better.

Chemistry is not just a part of everything it is everything. This course explores how chemistry is a key part of everyday life, and it helps learners develop an understanding of the molecules that make up everything we use, from materials to medicine, from coffee to cars.

The most rewarding part of working on this free online course was answering all the learners’ questions and helping to increase their understanding of everyday chemistry. Abilities ranged from A-level right through to beginners, and it was really fulfilling to see them engage with the topics through weekly videos I made.