News from Journal House

Earth Day 2004

Getting ready to celebrate Earth Day with your students? If you use the February 2004 issue of JCE, doing so will be easy—the issue is packed with great resource materials. There is a Classroom Activity plus 20 articles, all celebrating Earth Day.

The issue has three related themes:

• What do you know about H₂O?
  This section includes an activity on water filtration and ten articles, ranging from the cover feature about "Water Quality Monitoring by Satellite" to the lab experiment "A Simulation of the Interaction of Acid Rain with Soil Minerals" to an article on teaching with problems and case studies "Well Wishes. A Case on Septic Systems and Well Water Requiring In-Depth Analysis and Including Optional Laboratory Experiments"

• Green Chemistry
  This theme includes a report on green chemistry resources that may be found online and an NSF Highlights article (with supplements) "Microscale Syntheses, Reactions, and ¹H NMR Spectroscopic Investigations of Square Planar Macrocyclic Tetraamido-N Cu(III) Complexes Relevant to Green Chemistry"

• Environmental Chemistry
  Eight articles comprise this theme, ranging from a review of a book chronicling the history of dioxin to a research article "Novel Strategies for the Removal of Toxic Metals from Soils and Waters"

Awards Announced

PITTCON 2004 Science Week Grant Announced

PITTCON (the Pittsburgh Conference) announces that the Department of Earth Science and Geology at Northeastern Illinois University (NEIU) will receive the PITTCON 2004 Science Week Major Grant of $24,500 to fund "Put the Moon Under a Microscope!" workshops for secondary school students in Chicago, Illinois. (NEIU is a state-supported non-residential university and a federally-designated Hispanic Serving Institution drawing students from the greater-Chicago area.) At these Saturday workshops, NEIU faculty will teach students and teachers from Chicago middle and high schools microscopy skills, mineral identification, and principles of crystal growth using student-friendly petrographic microscopes and moon rock samples on loan from NASA.

Science Week is an outreach program of the Pittsburgh Conference, which annually provides strong support for science education in the host city for the PITTCON meeting. For more information about this year's Science Week program, or any other events at PITTCON 2004 or the 2004 Technical Program or the 2004 Exposition, visit the conference Web site (accessed Jan 2004).

Courses, Seminars, Meetings, Opportunities

Weird Science Institute

A ninth edition of "A Week With Weird Science and Wade" has been scheduled at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) for August 2-6 and again for August 9-13, 2004. This intensive institute (all day/five days) features Lee Marek and the Weird Science crew with "exocharmic" demonstrations, labs, computer materials, make-and-takes, and lectures in chemistry. It is offered as UIC's graduate-level Chemistry 572, Teaching Methods in Chemistry. Tentative topics include "real" micro chemistry, colloids, and overcoming bad concepts with good demonstrations. Presenters are Bob Lewis, Lee Marek, John Little, Sue Bober and Wade Freeman. For more information contact Wade Freeman at UIC, Department of Chemistry, 845 West Taylor Street, Chicago, IL 60607; phone: 312/996-3161; or visit the Web site (accessed Jan 2004).

Nanotechnology Research Experiences for Undergrads

Rice University will offer a Summer 2004 Nanotechnology Research Experience for Undergraduates program at the Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology. The program dates are June 7-August 13, 2004. The program is directed toward highly qualified (rising) juniors and seniors in engineering and science disciplines, especially chemistry, biology, physics, bioengineering, chemical engineering, environmental engineering, and electrical engineering. Rising sophomores who show exceptional promise will also be considered. All applicants must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents.

More information about the program and application forms may be found at this Web site (accessed Jan 2004).

Canadian Society for Chemistry Conference

The 87th Canadian Chemistry Conference and Exhibition organized by the Canadian Society for Chemistry will be held from May 29 to June 1, 2004 at the London Convention Centre and Hilton Hotel in London, Ontario, Canada. The conference theme is Strong Roots/New Branches. The Department of Chemistry of the University of Western Ontario will host the conference.

Symposia will be held in all major areas of chemistry as well as in macromolecular science and engineering, chemical education, history of chemistry, and environmental chemistry. The invited speakers are the world's leaders in science, including Plenary Speaker Richard N. Zare (Stanford University).

Find more information about the conference at the Web site (accessed Jan 2004). The deadline for early registration is April 30, 2004.

International Symposium on Supramolecular Chemistry

The Thirteenth International Symposium on Supramolecular Chemistry (ISSC-XIII) will be held at the University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, from July 25 to July 30, 2004.

The ISSC-XIII program will include 50 plenary and iinvited lecture presentations on a wide range of interdisciplinary topics such as self-assembly, nanostructures, host-guest chemistry, recognition at interfaces, supramolecular sensors and catalysts, and bimolecular recognition. In addition, the first day of the symposium will include a series of NSF Workshops on Supramolecular Chemistry that will be of particular interest to students.

Further information about the Symposium may be found at the Web site (accessed Jan 2004).

Proposal Deadlines National Science Foundation Division of Undergraduate Education (DUE) The following NSF deadlines have been established or are anticipated. National Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education Digital Library (NSDL) Letters of Intent (optional): March 14 2004 Formal Proposals: April 14 2004 NSF Director’s Award for Distinguished Teaching Scholars (DTS) Formal Proposals: February 25, 2004 Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Talent Expansion Program (STEP) Formal Proposals: March 10, 2004 Robert Noyce Scholarship Program Letters of Intent (optional): March 5, 2004 Formal Proposals: April 2, 2004 Advanced Technological Education (ATE) Letters of Intent (optional): April 21, 2004 Formal Proposals: October 8, 2004 Official deadline dates for proposals will be specified in the new program solicitation for each program, to be published at least three months before the relevant deadline date. Information about Other Funding Opportunities for STEM Education are available. Program solicitations are available electronically through NSF's Online Document System and through the NSF DUE site; phone: 703/292-8670; email. The Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, Inc. Camille Dreyfus Teacher–Scholar Awards Program: November 11, 2004 Faculty Start-Up Grants for Undergraduate Institutions: May 13, 2004 Henry Dreyfus Teacher–Scholar Awards Program: June 24, 2004 New Faculty Awards Program: May 13, 2004 Postdoctoral Program in Environmental Chemistry: February 26, 2004 Scholar/Fellow Program for Undergraduate Institutions: June 24, 2004 (Note revised guidelines.) Senior Scientist Mentor: August 26, 2004 Special Grant Program in the Chemical Sciences: Preliminary Proposals: June 17, 2004 Completed Proposals: August 26, 2004 Further information may be obtained from The Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, Inc., 555 Madison Avenue, Suite 1305, New York, NY 10022; phone: 212/753-1760; email; WWW. Research Corporation Cottrell College Science Awards: May 15 and November 15 Cottrell Scholars: September 1, 2004 Research Innovation Awards: suspended 2004-2005 Research Opportunity Awards: May 1 and October 1 Further information may be obtained from Research Corporation, 101 North Wilmot Road, Suite 250, Tucson, AZ 85711-3332; phone: 520/571-1111; fax: 520/571-1119; email; WWW.