Research On The Curricular Design Of ChemCom And Comparison Between The 2～(nd) And 4～(th) Edition

National Science Education Standards (NSES), the first national science education standard in American history, was born in the late 20th century after the implementation of 2061 Project, which was a milestone of worldwide science educational revolution. From then on, science education was not just for cultivating scientists or technological elites for the countries. Instead, Science for Public and to enhance scientific literacy of every citizen became the main stream.Meanwhile, with the National Science Foundation funding (NSFF), American Chemical Society (ACS) developed a brand-new high school chemistry curriculum, that was Chemistry in community (ChemCom). ChemCom constructed instructional system on the social background. It covered contents existing in traditional chemistry curriculum such as chemistry terminology, thinking method, problem solving and laboratory skills. Different kinds of materials, student-centered, activity-based or event oriented, were designed to encourage individuals to solve problems independently or coordinately, to help them integrate their knowledge and to understand its application in the real world. ChemCom exceeded the boundary of traditional chemistry curriculum. The original design and unique system made ChemCom a big hit in the field of worldwide chemistry curriculum.Based on the analysis on the spirits of international science educational reform and the historical and social background in which ChemCom was born and developed, this paper explained how ChemCom was related to, affected and guided by scientific literacy proposed by 2061 Project and NSES, and tried to extract the idea of its design. Furthermore, the construction of the 4th edition was elaborated into two main clues, namely social and humanity clues, as well as two complementary clues, namely technical and environmental clues. Then, the 2nd edition was compared with the 4th edition to show the similarities in the curricular value, textbook design and learning style, and to show the differences in organization, content choosing and activity. In the end, advices were given to chemistry curricular reform in our country.