The Nature of Familiar Materials: a practical lab course.
With:
Lama Mark Webber and Rafael Hoekstra
Location:
Chemistry Department, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
Date:
April 7-15, 2008
Course Description:
This is a fun introductory chemistry course for non-scientists, specifically designed for practitioners of Dharma. No math skills required and no tests! It is going to be a very practical lab based discovery exploration into the realm of form: specifically where commonly encountered materials such as plastic, paint, metal, dyes, drugs and gases come from; what they are, their uses and their impact on our planet. We will find out how they are derived from natural sources, synthesized and modified by humans. What are these materials? Where do they come from? How are they made? Are they safe? What kind of world do we live in?
Today the split between vague concepts of chemistry and materials science, and actually handling them, studying them and making them has become a serious gap. Few people outside of the physical and biological sciences have a feel and knowledge of how much of what we touch, see, ingest, consume, walk or crawl on, wear, design, live in, earn money from and are transported by (such as cars, bikes and planes), every day, perhaps thousands of times per day, comes from modified natural materials and the science of chemistry. And very few of us comprehend how this has dramatically changed our lives, will continue to shape our lives, our mental and physical states, and drive so much of what we do and think. We are a product of this chemical age, so let us become more aware of it.
The art of enquiry will be another topic that threads throughout the course. We learn to research, experiment, observe, test and question in a scientific manner by being in a lab all day. We will be fully immersed in discovery and question about almost everything around us, and often in us!
In addition to exciting and fascinating hands on experiments making materials and chemicals guided by Rafael Hoekstra, Lama Mark is going to give classes on the history of science and chemistry from its birth in the mystical arts of Alchemy to the growth of modern science. He feels it is vital to those of us who are practicing meditation and spiritual traditions to understand the rich and important Western history and method of scientific enquiry. It is imperative that we have some real experience with a remarkable tradition that has brought us so many discoveries, saved many of our lives, at times brought about enormous harm, and fostered an extraordinary way of life with so many positive and negative results. Not to comprehend where we have come from, culturally, historically and physically; not to understand the joy and art of science and how it molds our lives, for good or ill; is to miss out on a critical shaper of our planet and all its organisms at every level.
Course Topics and Experiments:
- From Alchemy to modern science
- Safety in the lab
- The scientific method of inquiry- working together to untangle questions and work with matter.
- Basic chemical principles: atoms and molecules.
- The elements: isolating the building blocks of the universe. Iron, iodine, hydrogen, oxygen and chlorine.
- Making Salts
- From oil and coal to drugs and dyes- how chemists make these synthetic everyday substances.
- Synthesis of a drug: aspirin.
- Synthesis of a plastic: nylon.
- Making paint: Titanium dioxide.
- Making glass.
- Making a ceramic.
- What is the green stuff? Looking at plant pigments.
- Extraction of sugars from beets.
- Extraction of DNA.
- What is in sea water?