Follow the Electrons─A Review-Based Proposal for a New, General Concept in Chemistry Education

Chemistry is not very popular in school; many students do not see the relevance of chemistry. Drop-out rates at university are also quite high, especially after the switch from general chemistry (or inorganic chemistry) to organic chemistry. In this article, a new general concept for learning chemistry at school and at university, regardless of whether it is inorganic or organic chemistry, will be described and discussed. For most chemical reactions, electron flow occurs. Here, the electron movement can be followed and visualized. This should also make the switch from general (or inorganic) to organic chemistry much easier for the students because there is no need for learning new elements of the formula language such as electron pushing arrows. For making the relevance of chemistry transparent, focusing on electron flow should also be beneficial; renewable energy and the use of hydrogen as a substitute for fossil fuels also include electron flow. These topics can therefore be discussed in chemistry lessons using the FOLTEL (follow the electrons) concept. The development of this concept will be described based on a review of relevant literature. For applying the concept, a construction kit with several different arrows was developed and used. Two interview studies on the application of the concept for solving tasks in general and organic chemistry will be described and discussed. The second study was designed as an intervention study. The results show that the students who used the construction kit were significantly more successful in developing the reaction mechanisms.