<p> In a modem society, many important products such as fuels, fertilizers and plastics are produced by chemical industries through the application of science and technology. The study of chemistry serves as a cornerstone for many disciplines such as medicine, biology, and pharmacy. However, in spite of this relevance to technology and the environment, many students see chemistry as abstract and unrelated to real life and, in fact, report that chemistry was one of the most difficult subjects they had to study in high school. This perception could explain the results of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study, released in November 1996, which indicate that Ontario students lag behind the national average and that Canadian secondary school science and mathematics students as a whole perform behind students from such countries as Japan and Belgium. </p> <p> As a result of these science test results and other social and political factors, the Ontario government decided to implement a process of secondary reform, announced in 1997, that would integrate five years into four and modify the science curriculum one year at a time starting in September, 1999. Along with other legislative changes, secondary school teachers have found that they do not have adequate preparation time or professional development training and direction, nor the resources to prepare the new curriculum changes. However, in spite of these concerns about rapid change, the Ontario Ministry of Education and Training released the Ontario Science Curriculum guidelines for Grades 9 and 10 in the late spring of 1999 with implementation to start with Grade 9 students in September, 1999. </p> <p> The purpose of this project was to design a chemistry unit and curriculum format, using the new Ontario Science Curriculum guidelines for Grade 9 and 10 (1999), to help both teachers and students relate chemistry to real life, thereby improving the standard of teaching and learning science in high school. To do this, the author developed a Grade 9 "applied" chemistry unit on " Exploring Matter." </p> <p> Based on the Kemp, Morrison and Ross (1994/1998) model, which uses an instructional development process involving nine components (e.g., identifying learner characteristics, establishing learning objectives and making decisions about instructional strategies and resources), the unit format uses a practical chart organizer. The approach, which other teachers may use as an example to develop other units, can make learning more effective by integrating the learning expectations stipulated in the new Ontario science curriculum guidelines, while relating content and activities to real life. By having the potential of improving teaching and learning, the instructional design approach used in this project also has the long-term potential of improving the national and international science test results for Ontario students. </p> / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)