Designing and Developing High School Student Activities to Understand Chelating Action by Foam Properties

Italian high school students carried out some activities within career guidance actions organized by the Department of Chemistry of Sapienza University (Rome) in order to promote enrollments in a chemistry Bachelor's course, thus remedying the shortage of professional chemists. Novel didactic sequences have been designed to facilitate the connection between the physics of foam, the chemistry of chelating agents (such as citric acid and EDTA), and possible related environmental issues due to their widespread presence in everyday products. Detailed students' worksheets and laboratory instructions inspired by a guided inquiry-based approach have been provided, in order to stimulate students in testing a hypothesis and consulting scientific literature. Moreover, other nonexperimental activities helped students in developing a mature vision of chemistry, attentive to human health and environmental protection.