AVAILABILITY OF LABORATORY FACILITIES IN CHEMISTRY DEPARTMENT IN SCHOOLS
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background to the Study
Chemistry is the study that deals with the composition, properties and the use of matter. It probes into the principles governing the changes that matter
undergoes: (Advanced Level Chemistry by John Murray). Our world is made up of matter, chemistry is studied to acquire knowledge and learn to observe, record and make intelligent inferences.
Chemistry as a modern science began a few hundred years ago, when Chemists started to relate the observations they made about the substances they were
investigating, the theories of the structure of matter. It is studied to acquire knowledge and learn to observe, record and make intelligent inferences.
Chemistry is first and foremost an empirical science. It is best practiced and understood according to John Murray in the manner in which it started, at the
laboratory bench. Virtually, all our present day chemical knowledge of the properties of elements and compounds and how they react together to form new
materials, has been discovered by skilled experimentalists, one with a degree of serendipity.
The American Chemical Society at its centennial celebration in 1976 defined chemistry as “the science and technology of taking things apart and putting
things together”. Simple as the above definition is, the society at large has benefited tremendously. Chemistry has the potential to help the nation develop
her agriculture, drugs, energy resources, construction materials, soaps and detergents, textiles, foods and beverages, etc.
Chemistry as a science, as stipulated in the National Policy on Education (2004) is to equip students to live effectively in our modern age of science and
technology. This goal can only become a reality if the theoretical scientific concepts are buttressed with practical or experiment demonstrated through the use of laboratory.
The laboratory has been given a central and distinctive role in chemistry education and chemistry educators have suggested that rich benefits in learning, accrue from using laboratory activities. The success of chemistry education is associated with the use of laboratory facilities.
A chemistry laboratory is a chemical building where one can perform in actual the dierent
reactions that have been learnt in the books or heard in lectures.
Laboratory facilities are needed in all its ramifications for the purpose of achieving specific goals, and aid or facility can be used for instructional process and
development. It is therefore imperative for teachers to use instructional aids to make their teaching more interesting, effective to arrest and sustain more attention of the students for effective learning to take place.
