News from Journal House

CHED Gets a New Address

CHED, the ACS Division of Chemical Education, now has a new Web address (the previous address still works, too):

http://www.divched.org

General Chemistry Collection 7th Edition

General Chemistry Collection, 7th Edition (GCC) has been released by JCE Software and shipped to those who have placed orders. More information about GCC may be found on the JCE Software Web site. Also see this abstract of General Chemistry Collection 7th Edition as it appeared in the June 2003 issue of JCE.

General Chemistry Collection 7th Edition (GCC), Special Issue 16, is a CD-ROM for both Mac OS and Windows. It contains 31 tried and tested JCE Software programs appropriate for introductory chemistry students. GCC includes both previously published and new peer-reviewed software on a single CD-ROM for convenient access by students.

To purchase this CD-ROM or for information about its use by a library or Wide Area Network (WAN), including WWW, contact JCE Software.

JCE-DLib Goes Live!

As readers may know, the Journal has a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to form the Journal of Chemical Education Digital Library (JCE-DLib). We are in the process of organizing existing Journal materials and new items into four collections: Computer Algebra Documents, JCE WebWare, DigiDemos, and Resources for Student Assessment. Being a part of the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) project will allow JCE to add to the considerable digital material that is already available at JCE Online, the JCE Web site, and it will expose those materials to a wider audience.

We are pleased to be able to give this progress report. The JCE-DLib WebWare collection has been incorporated into NSDL. WebWare items can now be found at the NSDL Web site, either through their search engine or by browsing the Collections tab. Soon, perhaps by the time you read this, Computer Algebra Documents will join the JCE-DLib catalog. This collection grew out of the long-running Mathcad in the Curriculum column. It now includes Mathematica documents, and was renamed to reflect its broader scope. Of course, both of these JCE features are still available through JCE Online and are linked from the home page. The remaining collections, Resources for Student Assessment and DigiDemos, are in development. You can learn more about all of our collections at the JCE-Dlib home page.

The digital library concept is based on open standards for sharing information about collections. The Dublin Core metadata format is quickly becoming the lingua franca for cataloging articles, images, and other resources. The Open Archives Initiative has created a widely accepted protocol for sharing metadata over the Internet. The NSDL project is using these standards to collect records from digital libraries that specialize in educational resources for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). Starting with a partnership of NSDL-funded projects, NSDL is emerging as a center of innovation in digital libraries as applied to education.

As always, we are looking for contributions. For information, email JCEDigiLib@chem.wisc.edu.

Awards Announced

Outstanding Alumnus

The College of the Sequoias, Visalia, California, has announced inductees into their Hall of Fames for 2003:

• Jerry L. Sarquis, Miami University, Miami, OH

Sarquis attended this community college from 1961–1963.

ACS Announces High School Teacher Awards

The American Chemical Society announces winners of the ACS Regional Award in High School Chemistry Teaching for 2003. These awardees will be honored at their respective annual regional meetings during fall 2003. Each teacher now becomes eligible for the national James B. Conant Award.

Southeast Region. Marsha Ottem, Greeneville High School, Greeneville, TN, will be awarded the Southeast Region Teacher of the Year in High School Chemistry at the Region’s meeting in Atlanta, GA, November 16–19, 2003. Ottem has taught chemistry at Greeneville High since 1973, and started the AP program in 1988. She calls her approach “active chemistry”, which involves hands-on experimentation with real-world problems, constantly challenging her students, and an infectious energy. She captures students’ interest with the fun of chemistry, leading a number of them to embrace chemistry as their chosen career path.

As sponsor of the Greeneville Chemistry Club, she uses this forum as another means of stimulating and involving her students. She has worked with a large group of them to assemble a chemical demonstration program that traveled to elementary and middle schools in the area. She also brings her students to ACS local section events and to regional meetings. Passionate as she is about teaching, so too is she passionate about learning and keeping up to date on advances in her chosen science. As she herself so ardently states: “Everything… I will ever know, everything I will ever pass on to students, to my children, is an inseparable part of an ongoing legacy of our shared wonder and eternal hope that we can, we must, make ourselves better.”

For more information on the ACS Southeast Regional Meeting, please visit their Web site (accessed Aug 2003).

Southwest Region. Passionate, dynamic, inspirational are only a few of the words that come to mind when describing the winner of the Southwest Regional Teacher of the Year in High School Chemistry. Jane D. Smith, R. L. Turner High School, Carrollton, TX, tells her students that “chemistry is really cool!” and proves it using cartoons, jokes, and songs in her classroom. In fact, she is a co-author of The Mole Song, published by the National Mole Day Foundation. But while showing her students how chemistry can be fun, she also challenges them to use their “right brains”, having utilized “right-brain” activities early in her career. She wears clothing and jewelry that has specific chemistry meaning.

Smith will receive her award at the Southwest Regional Meeting at the University of Oklahoma, October 25–28, 2003. She has a list of publications and presentations to her credit, served as president of the Associated Chemistry Teachers of Texas (ACT₂) from 1995–1997, organized a memorable Welch Biennial State Chemistry Conference, and published The Ultimate Equation Handbook, an aid for AP chemistry students and teachers. She is hands-on and interactive, and has brought computer technology into the classroom to keep her students up to speed. Those students have commented that while her chemistry classes were “tough”, they felt they learned a great deal, and had a great deal of fun doing so!

For more information on the ACS Southwest Regional Meeting, please visit their Web site (accessed Aug 2003).

Midwest Region. Eugene Erickson, Lincoln Senior High School, Sioux Falls, SD, is the recipient of the 2003 Midwest Regional Teacher of the Year for High School Chemistry. Erickson will be honored at this year’s regional meeting, November 5–7, 2003, at the University of Missouri in Columbia. He has taken students who were absolutely certain they would not enjoy chemistry and turned their lives around by creating an atmosphere of excitement and anticipation in his classrooms—students on the verge of dropping out and those who went into chemistry only to meet a graduation requirement and ended up majoring in chemistry. Students sense his genuine care and interest in them, absorb the work ethic he prescribes, and appreciate his kind, supportive approach.

Erickson has been teaching chemistry and AP chemistry at Lincoln High since 1967. He has continually updated his education over the years by taking additional courses, and the results are apparent from the awards he has received: Presidential Award of Excellence in Science Teaching, 1994; South Dakota Science Teachers Association Service Award, 1997–1998; and numerous outstanding teacher awards throughout his career.

His joy of teaching leads him to call his career a “hobby” because of the pleasure it brings him. He modestly sums up his success with his students this way: “The successes of teaching chemistry have been a result of the joy of teaching, care for students, and love of chemistry.”

For more information on the ACS Midwest Regional Meeting, consult their Web site (accessed Aug 2003).

Central Region. Julia Winter is Central Regional Teacher of the Year. The Central Regional Meeting (CERM) promises to be exceptional as this year’s host, local section Pittsburgh, celebrates its 100th anniversary during the October 19–22, 2003 meeting at the Sheraton Station Square Hotel. Julia Winter will be among the honorees at an awards banquet recognizing her many contributions to attracting students to high school chemistry and beyond. In her eight years at Detroit Country Day School, she has been a driving force in the classroom, club activities, science fairs, and other academic competitions. She organized a “Chemistry in the Community” course that became so popular that a second teacher was needed.

A firm believer in the use of the latest technology, she has worked with other teachers and her students to introduce computers to the classroom. She has developed an exciting “Chemistry Day” project in which her students create chemistry lessons for second graders in the school—complete with lesson plan, a script for the presentation, and a worksheet for the children. They must establish a Web site for the lesson, with links to the worksheets and photographs of the events. A dynamic and dedicated instructor, Winter has instilled a sense of wonder and curiosity among her students, past and present, that goes far beyond chemistry.

For more information on the ACS Central Regional Meeting, consult their Web site (accessed Aug 2003).

Western Region. Andrée Prigoda Reed, Las Vegas High School, will be awarded the ACS Western Regional Award in High School Chemistry Teaching at their meeting at the Hilton Hotel in Long Beach, California, October 15–18, 2003. Ms. Reed has been with Las Vegas since 1991. Her passion for chemistry and science are evident in her extensive list of continuing education credits in physics, writing for science, thermodynamics, nuclear science, and geology.

Reed is an outstanding teacher by her own definition: “I know I am only an outstanding teacher when they are outstanding students.” In the last four years, more than half her students achieved scores of 4 or 5 on AP exams! But the data do not reflect her intense personal commitment to teaching students how to survive and thrive in the academic world and in life. Chemistry is her tool to get students to take information from every area of learning and apply it to solving problems. As she herself says, “I am a teacher of chemistry, but I am realistic enough to know that chemistry is not what will be remembered after graduation. My goal, and I tell it to each class, is to ‘help you learn about yourself as a student; become independent with more efficient learning skills, and to think before admitting defeat.’” Judging from accolades from past students and her record of success, she has been successful in attaining that goal.

For more information on the ACS Western Regional Meeting, consult their Web site (accessed Aug 2003).

2003 Eastern Analytical Symposium Awards

The Eastern Analytical Symposium (EAS) has announced the winners of their 2003 awards, to be presented during their annual meeting, November 17–20, 2003, at the Garden State Exhibit Center, Somerset, NJ. A list of the 2003 awardees is available online (accessed Aug 2003).

Award Deadlines

2004 Pittsburgh Conference College Grant Program

The Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy and its co-sponsoring technical societies announce the 2004 Pittsburgh Conference Memorial National College Grants Program. Grants will be awarded to small college science departments for the purchase of scientific equipment, audio-visual or other teaching aids, and/or library materials for use in the teaching of science at the undergraduate level. Based on submitted proposals, at least 12 colleges will be selected to receive grants, each grant having a maximum of $9,000. To be eligible for an award, schools must have an enrollment that does not exceed 5,000 full-time students and receive no more than 25% of their operating budget from national or state governments.

For complete eligibility requirements as well as application forms, contact Rita M. Windisch, The Pittsburgh Conference—PCNMCG, 300 Penn Center Boulevard, Suite 332, Pittsburgh, PA 15235-5503; phone: 412/825-3220, ext. 204; fax: 412/825-3224. Grant applications and proposals must be received no later than December 1, 2003. Announcement of the awards will be made by February 2004.

Courses, Seminars, Meetings,Opportunities

Education Division, RACI National Conference

The Royal Australian Chemical Institute Chemical Education Division National Conference will be held February 5–10, 2004, at the School of Chemistry, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. The conference has the primary goal of bringing together all those interested in the teaching of chemistry, from schools, colleges, universities, technical colleges, and industries. The conference program includes a special day devoted to teachers of high school and college chemistry, and will focus on new developments in chemistry (both for teaching and research). A day will also be devoted to the improvement of chemical teaching in the laboratory, and an evening plant tour, with a light supper, has also been organized to Pasminco, the local zinc producers. The conference presents the opportunity for delegates to present both oral and poster presentations, which will compliment the keynote and invited lectures.

Details of the program, events, and registration are available on the conference Web site (accessed Aug 2003).

55th Annual Meeting, AIChE

The American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) will hold its annual meeting November 16–21, 2003, in San Francisco. The agenda includes traditional chemical engineering disciplines as well as emerging technologies, including biochemistry, bioinformatics, biopharmaceuticals, and nanotechnology. There will be 18 topical conferences, subdivided into the areas of Biomedicine; Process Technologies & Research; Nano, Bio, Nanobio, and Microelectric Technologies; and Green and Emerging Technologies. More information may be found at this Web site, or by contacting AIChE customer service at 800/242-4363.

Short Courses, Lab Safety Institute

The Laboratory Safety Institute, Natick, MA, has announced its summer and fall schedule of its two-day Lab Safety Short Course for lab supervisors, lab workers, scientists, and science educators. The course covers how to avoid accidents and injuries with simple, practical, low-cost, or free solutions. It also provides resources for understanding the fundamentals of lab safety, developing or improving lab safety programs, and complying with the OSHA Lab Standard. In addition, participants receive 1.4 Continuing Education Units (CEUs) and a certificate of participation; graduate credit and the video tape, Two-Day Lab Safety Video Short Course, are also available. For a schedule of dates and places the course will be presented may be found at this Web site (accessed Aug 2003).

Eastern Analytical Symposium (EAS) 2003

The 2003 Eastern Analytical Symposium will take place November 17–20, 2003, in the Garden State Exhibit Center, Somerset, NJ. Full details, including the program of oral and poster sessions, short courses and workshops offered, registration and housing information, and details of the Exposition may be found at this Web site (accessed Aug 2003).

Mole Day 2003

October 23, from 6:02 a.m. to 6:02 p.m., is Mole Day 2003. Mole Day commemorates Avogadro’s Number (6.02 ¥ 1023). Mole Day was created as a way to foster interest in chemistry. Schools throughout the United States and around the world celebrate Mole Day with various activities related to chemistry and/or moles. The 2003 theme is Rock ‘N’ Mole. More information about the Mole Day Foundation and this year’s celebratory plans is at the Mole Day Web site (accessed Aug 2003).

Materials Available

Periodic Table for Biology

A free copy of the periodic table of the elements that has the elements color coded according to their biological impact in nature is available from Instruments for Research and Industry, I²R. The chart was developed by Robert Orr, a high school science teacher. To obtain a copy contact Instruments for Research and Industry, I2R, P.O. Box 159, Cheltenham, PA 19012.