Context and Chemistry Going Dutch?: The Development of a Context-Based Curriculum in the Netherlands

In the Netherlands a new context-based curriculum has been designed to cope with the problem of the diminishing attention for chemistry as a subject. The curriculum consists of a number of modules in which a context is introduced. Based on scientific questions related to the context chemical concepts are discussed with the students. An experiment preliminary to implementation is being carried out in 20 schools. The design of the curriculum and the first results of this experiment are presented in this paper. A number of problems have been encountered. It seems possible to attain the ultimate goal of nationwide implementation in 2012