The Dow Chemical Co., Midland, Mich., and the American Association of Chemistry Teachers (AACT) have announced a partnership to improve the teaching of chemistry in grades K-12. Dow will contribute $1 million over a four year period to the initiative.
Dow and AACT plan to run a series of teacher summits — the first will take place in Midland this summer — and create more than 750 lesson plans, multimedia resources, demonstrations and other high-quality chemistry teaching materials that will be made available on the association’s website.
“This new partnership comes at a critical time,” notes Adam Boyd, AACT program director. “Enrollment in high school chemistry classes is on the rise. Yet, only 35 percent of high school chemistry teachers have both a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and are actually certified to teach it.”