Have you ever wondered how your science education connects to the global challenges that will define your future? For many of us, the bridge between classroom concepts and real-world impact remains difficult to see. But what if our science education was explicitly designed to address global challenges like climate change, public health crises and water access?
This is precisely the question that Jane Liu, Daniel O’Leary and Katy Muzikar are exploring through their innovative CHEM23 Discovering Chemistry w/ Lab course. Liu and O’Leary are chemistry professors and Muzikar is the biochemistry laboratory coordinator at Pomona College. Their approach challenges the century-old tradition of teaching chemistry as a series of abstract concepts divorced from their real-world implications.
“Why keep teaching general chemistry the same way that we’ve been teaching it for, like, the past century?” Liu said. “It’s not like [chemical] equilibrium has fundamentally changed but still, we’ve learned a lot about how students learn, about motivation, about lots of things.”
The equivalent, Liu suggested, would be teaching computer science without integrating machine learning or artificial intelligence. Science education must evolve to remain relevant.
CHEM23 represents a fundamental shift in how we teach and learn science. While traditional approaches also teach core chemical concepts, CHEM23 frames these principles within the context of global challenges defined by the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
“I learned to view chemistry through a more intuitive, applicable lens than I had previously,” Mira Chenok PO ’27 said.
Discussions of molecular structure emerge naturally from questions about carbon dioxide and climate change. Acid-base chemistry becomes relevant through the lens of ocean acidification. Even precipitation reactions take on new meaning when connected to clean drinking water access.
“Our job, as I see it, is to provide students with frameworks for understanding not just chemical principles but more importantly, how our field affects the world around us in both positive and negative ways,” O’Leary explained.
The professors emphasized that students need to master the same fundamental chemical principles as in any general chemistry course.
“We’re still all covering the same things: equilibrium, thermodynamics, kinetics, bonding,” Liu clarified. “But we had to sort of shuffle things around so we don’t necessarily present things in the same order. We might not go in as much depth in some topics, but we go into more depth in others.”
Perhaps the most striking aspect of CHEM23 is its emphasis on collaboration — both among faculty and students. The course is co-taught by three professors who sit in on each other’s classes, even when not leading, creating a dynamic learning environment where multiple perspectives enrich the educational experience.
“I’ve really appreciated … co-developing and co-teaching and collaborating on teaching,” Liu said. “It’s just really nice to have each other’s back in such an immediate and constant way.”
“While traditional approaches also teach core chemical concepts, CHEM23 frames these principles within the context of global challenges defined by the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.“
Collaboration occurs between students as well. The classroom becomes a dynamic space where students work in teams, discuss problems and present solutions. By the spring semester, classes began to resemble research group meetings where students share results and collectively work through challenges.
“Being able to collaborate with peers solving problems helped me grasp the concepts we were learning in class while also making meaningful relationships with my classmates, ” Felicia Akinde PO ’27 said.
The course culminates in a Course-based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) where students contribute to actual research questions in Liu’s lab. For example, students work on molecular evolution projects to create RNA or DNA molecules with specific functions.
“One research question might be: What happens if we use this starting material rather than that starting material? What happens if we do steps two and three in reverse order?” Liu asked.
These are real optimization questions that help refine protocols used in her research.
“Chemistry, as with any experimental endeavor, advances iteratively with cycles of failure and success,” O’Leary said. “Anyone who has worked at the bench knows that failures outnumber successes. This is OK — you often learn from the ones that didn’t work.”
The traditional approach to science education has created an artificial divide between learning science and doing science. It has also failed to connect scientific principles to the urgent challenges facing humanity.
CHEM23 offers a compelling alternative vision where science education is context-driven, connecting scientific principles to real-world issues; collaborative, emphasizing teamwork and shared discovery; research-focused, blurring the lines between classroom and laboratory; and accessible, making authentic scientific experiences available to all students.
The implications extend far beyond chemistry. This model represents a fundamental rethinking of how we prepare students to address complex problems in our rapidly changing world. As O’Leary described, CHEM23 is “serving as an incubator for curricular change in our department and perhaps within adjacent departments.”
If we truly believe that science is a human endeavor — a collaborative, creative pursuit aimed at understanding and improving our world — then our educational approaches should reflect that reality. We need science education that inspires not just future scientists but also engaged citizens who understand how science intersects with society’s greatest challenges.
Gabriel Brenner PO ’26 loves exploring the human aspects of science.
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