Early examples of outreach involved books, public lectures, and chemical demonstrations. In 1800 Count Rumford collaborated with influential Londoners to establish the Royal Institution as a means of providing lectures on science and technology to help working people to improve their lot. Humphry Davy, Michael Faraday, and many others continued the tradition. Faraday's own interest in science was sparked in part by Jane Marcet's book Conversations in Chemistry, whose friendly style made its contents accessible and fascinating to the young, highly intelligent bookbinder's apprentice. In the United States, Benjamin Silliman, first professor of chemistry at Yale, became widely known for his textbooks on geology and chemistry and for his ability as a popular lecturer. Silliman's lecture tours took him as far from New Haven as St. Louis and New Orleans.

By the mid-1800s societies for the advancement of science and of chemistry were being set up in Europe. In 1876 American chemists who gathered at Priestley's grave in Northumberland, Pennsylvania, to commemorate the centennial of the discovery of oxygen saw the need for a permanent organization and founded the American Chemical Society. By the beginning of the 20th century these societies were supporting education and public awareness of science. The first issue of this Journal described an outreach effort to place portraits of great American chemists in schools throughout the country, and a 1925 article dealt with "Educating the Public in the Use of the Metric System". A search of the JCE Online Index reveals many articles about chemistry and the public, with the number per year increasing steadily. During the last decade, for example, there have been 16 articles whose titles include "outreach" and many more that describe programs and resources for the general public.

Current outreach efforts include a much broader range of activities and media. Hands-on science has become very popular, but so has virtual science on the World Wide Web. A combination of the two, which is aimed at K-8 children, can be found at the ACS Education Division's WonderNet site (http://www.acs.org/wondernet/). For older children there is Your Virtual Chemistry Club (http://www.acs.org/vc2/). Many more ACS outreach materials are described at their Web site. Outreach activities described in this Journal include programs in which high school, college, or graduate students visit schools and work with children and teachers, events in which participants compete to carry out chemical tasks, programs aimed at women and minorities, van programs in which chemicals and instruments are transported throughout broad geographical areas to support teachers and students, chemistry summer camps, and many others. The International Chemistry Olympiad (see report on page 1480) involves large numbers of students and ACS local sectionsand more than 50 countries. Outreach to outreach leaders is provided by the Institute for Chemical Education, which distributes booklets that explain how to organize and carry out programs (http://ice.chem.wisc.edu/ice/).

The concept that the public is interested in science and can benefit from learning about science has expanded far beyond what Count Rumford could have imagined. Today we have books, magazines, videos, television programs, museums, theme parks, Web sites, and many other venues that include science. However, I always have a twinge of disappointment when I look at the shelves in our local bookstore and find that there are far more titles in other sciences than in chemistry. Are other sciences inherently more interestingor their practitioners inherently more literate?

I think not. Popularizing chemistry is more dependent on human interaction than is popularizing many other sciences. People deal with devices that approximate Newtonian physics every day. The stars, moon, and planets are there every night, and their vast number and regular motions inspire awe. Living systems are familiar to everyone, and we can observe their behavior and classify them. But chemistry is often hidden or complicated. Cooking food changes the food chemically, but both initial and final versions, like most other substances we encounter daily, are complicated mixtures. Chemists' atomic-scale models are not accessible to our senses. In order for chemistry not to be magic, someone needs to select simple, interesting, relevant examples, demonstrate them or help the average person work with them, and then relate those examples to everyday life.

Participating in and supporting National Chemistry Week and other outreach programs is crucial to the health of our discipline. Without chemists who donate their time and expertise to helping people understand and become familiar with chemistry, our fascinating subject is likely to seem dullor even scary. During National Chemistry Week, and during every other week of the year, we should extend hearty thanks to the myriad chemists and teachers whose time, energy, and expertise contribute to helping the public recognize how important and interesting chemistry is.