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Marco H. Scheer CBA Collection

Notifications

Held at: Science History Institute Archives [Contact Us]315 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19106

This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the Science History Institute Archives. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.

Overview and metadata sections

The Chemical Bond Approach (CBA) Project was a program established to develop a new and improved high school chemistry curriculum. Largely begun as a response to the challenge posed by the Soviet Union's Sputnik project to the United States' scientific preeminence, the CBA Project grew out of conferences for high school chemistry teachers held at Wesleyan College in 1958 and Reed College in 1959. Work had already begun on the drafting of a new curriculum for advanced placement chemistry students when the CBA Project obtained funding from the National Science Foundation. A textbook, a teachers' guide, and a laboratory manual resulted from these efforts.

Marco H. Scheer (1918-2000) was an American high school chemistry teacher. Born on December 31, 1918, Scheer taught high school chemistry in Nashua, New Hampshire. Scheer was actively involved with the Chemical Bond Approach Project. He attended the 1958 Wesleyan Conference on the Teaching of High School Chemistry, which was one of the conferences that led to the formation of the CBA Project. He was also a member of the Earlham College CBA team. His team collaborated with teams from four other colleges in preparing CBA Project materials, including the textbook, teacher's guide, and laboratory manual. Marco H. Scheer died in Nashua, New Hampshire on May 11, 2000.

Sources

Marco H. Scheer CBA Collection, Science History Institute Archives, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Arranged chronologically by date, the Marco H. Scheer CBA Collection contains materials regarding the Chemical Bond Approach Project (CBA), which were collected and maintained by American high school chemistry Marco H. Scheer. Scheer collected these materials through his participation in the CBA Project.

The files in this collection contain several drafts of the CBA Project's textbook Chemical Systems, the teachers' guide Teachers' Guide to Chemical Systems, and the laboratory manual Teacher's Guide to Investigating Chemical Systems. Also included are supplementary materials produced by the CBA Project, including newsletters, participant lists, trial lectures, and examinations. A handful of items regarding the CBA Project that were not produced by the project itself, including an issue of the journal The School Review, and the publication International Chemical Education: The High School Years are also preserved here. Some of the materials in this collection contain annotations written by Marco H. Scheer.

The Marco H. Scheer CBA Collection was donated to the Science History Institute (formerly known as the Chemical Heritage Foundation) by Marco H. Scheer in March 1997.

The Marco H. Scheer CBA Collection was processed by Andrew Mangravite in 2016.

Publisher
Science History Institute Archives
Finding Aid Author
Finding aid prepared by Andrew Mangravite and encoded into EAD by Kenton G. Jaehnig.
Finding Aid Date
2016
Access Restrictions

There are no restrictions on the materials and the collection is open to the public.

Use Restrictions

The Science History Institute holds copyright to the Marco H. Scheer CBA Collection. The researcher assumes full responsibility for all copyright, property, and libel laws as they apply.

Collection Inventory

Chemical Bond Approach Newsletters - Incomplete Run, 1959 October-1966 March.
Box 1 Folder 1
Teachers' Guide: Chemistry Laboratory - Third Edition Preprint, 1959.
Box 1 Folder 2
Participant Lists - Typed Lists with Corrections and Annotations, 1959-1961.
Box 1 Folder 3
Chemical Systems - 3rd Edition - Chapters 1-8 - Fifth Revision Draft, 1961-1962.
Box 1 Folder 4
Chemical Systems - Chapters 9-19 Complete - Revision Draft, 1961-1962.
Box 1 Folder 5
The School Review, Spring 1962 (Contains article by Laurence E. Strong on Chemical Bond Approach Project.), 1962.
Box 1 Folder 6
"Trial Lecture Table Demonstrations to Accompany CBA Chemistry" (Including "CBA Biographies" of famous chemists.), 1962.
Box 1 Folder 7
Chemical Systems Preprints - 1st Edition - Publishers' Prospectuses in Excerpt Form (Including some publicity materials and excerpts from the Teacher's Guide for Chemical Systems and Teacher's Guide to Investigating Chemical Systems.), 1961-1963.
Box 1 Folder 8
Preliminary Teachers' Guide to Chemical Systems - Preprint, 1963.
Box 1 Folder 9
Preliminary Teachers' Guide to Investigating Chemical Systems - Preprint, 1963.
Box 1 Folder 10
Preliminary Commercial Edition - Investigating Chemical Systems, 1963.
Box 1 Folder 11
Teachers' Guide to Investigating Chemical Systems - Draft, 1963 May 29.
Box 1 Folder 12
Preliminary Edition Text - Teachers' Guide for Chemical Systems - Draft, 1963 August.
Box 1 Folder 13
Teachers' Guide to Investigating Chemical Systems (Chemical Bond Approach Project's laboratory manual.), 1964.
Box 1 Folder 14
Chemical Bond Approach Project - Educational Testing Service Examinations, 1966.
Box 1 Folder 15
International Chemical Education: The High School Years (Annotated by Marco H. Scheer.) - Proceedings of a Conference Held by American Chemical Society, Washington, D.C., August 28-September 2, 1967 (Laurence E. Strong presented at this conference.), 1968.
Box 1 Folder 16

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