CHEMISTRY EXPERIMENT IN DISTANCE EDUCATION

In compliance with the National Programme for Development of Education in the Czech Republic and the draft of the Act on Preschool, Primary, Secondary, Higher Secondary and Other Education, a new system of curricular documents for education of pupils between 3 and 19 years is implemented. On the state level, the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport creates the curricular documents called the Framework Educational Programmes. These documents define the standard educational contents for preschool, primary and secondary school. The Framework Educational Programme for General Secondary Education emphasizes an appropriation of critical thinking and scientific method of research in science education. As far as chemistry education is concerned, this requirement is naturally realized by the pupil's work on chemistry experiments. The information and communication technologies (ICT) development provides an opportunity for utilization also in education. The Department of Teaching and Didactics of Chemistry is preparing new secondary school chemistry teachers. We are concerned with usage of the ICT in chemistry education, particularly in relation to the chemistry experiment. The experiment is a vital part of chemistry education, but the scientific experimental work is not frequently used in distance education or e-learning courses yet. In the contribution presented here, we would like to share our experience with extension of distance courses by bringing chemistry experiment to learners. We present interesting examples of experiments used in blended chemistry courses for students at every level of the education system as well as in on-line chemistry course for a wide population of non-chemists.