Search results for ""Author Elena Serrano""

In the late eighteenth century, enlightened politicians and upper-class women in Spain debated the right of women to join one of the country’s most prominent scientific institutions: the Madrid Economic Society of Friends of the Country. Societies such as these, as Elena Serrano describes in her book, were founded on the idea that laypeople could contribute to the advancement of their country by providing “useful knowledge,” and their fellows often referred to themselves as improvers, or friends of the country. After intense debates, the duchess of Benavente, along with nine distinguished ladies, claimed, won, and exercised the right of women to participate in shaping the future of their nation by inaugurating the Junta de Damas de Honor y Mérito, or the Committee of Ladies of Honor and Merit. Ten years later, the Junta established a network of over sixty correspondents extending from Tenerife to Asturias and Austria to Cuba.With this book, Serrano tells the unknown story of how the duchess and her peers - who succeeded in creating the only known female branch among some five hundred patriotic societies in the eighteenth century - shaped Spanish scientific culture. Her study reveals how the Junta, by stressing the value of their feminine nature in their efforts to reform education, rural economy, and the poor, produced and circulated useful knowledge and ultimately crystallized the European improvement movement in Spain within an otherwise all-male context.

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Winner of the CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title 2017 AwardThis comprehensive collection of top-level contributions provides a thorough review of the vibrant field of chemistry education. Highly-experienced chemistry professors and education experts cover the latest developments in chemistry learning and teaching, as well as the pivotal role of chemistry for shaping a more sustainable future. Adopting a practice-oriented approach, the current challenges and opportunities posed by chemistry education are critically discussed, highlighting the pitfalls that can occur in teaching chemistry and how to circumvent them. The main topics discussed include best practices, project-based education, blended learning and the role of technology, including e-learning, and science visualization. Hands-on recommendations on how to optimally implement innovative strategies of teaching chemistry at university and high-school levels make this book an essential resource for anybody interested in either teaching or learning chemistry more effectively, from experience chemistry professors to secondary school teachers, from educators with no formal training in didactics to frustrated chemistry students.

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