For the groundwork history, you might want to read the interview with Sir Harold Kroto. Kroto’s research program in the 1980s with Richard Smalley and Robert Curl of Rice University led to the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their discovery of buckminister fullerenes (bucky balls). Was the prize really for the discovery of this allotrope of carbon or something bigger? Sometimes it’s not just the discovery, but what the discovery leads to that earns one a Nobel Prize. This discovery has influenced so many avenues of research and given rise to so many opportunities to advance science and the world that the Nobel committee deemed the advent of bucky balls worthy of this ultimate acknowledgment. How do we bring this knowledge into the classroom? See JCE Classroom Activity on “Nanopatterning with Lithography.” Other references that might be of value for you to include are “Color My Nanoworld” (1), “We Actually Saw Atoms with Our Own Eyes” (2), “Spontaneous Assembly of Soda Straws” (3), “Arts and Sciences Reunite in Nanoput: Communicating Synthesis and the Nanoscale to the Layperson” (4), and “LEDs Are Diodes” (5). Our students are likely to have heard of nanocomputers, nanogears, nanorobots, and nanosurgery. Are we ready to help them understand?

Summer Is Almost Here

And, it is time for spring cleaning…with OxiClean! Using household chemicals to do chemistry can serve to engage your students with products that they are accustomed to seeing. Bracken and Tietz present a very interesting analysis for learning about decomposition reactions, molar mass, stoichiometry, and empirical formulae. Check it out!

Communicating to the public is a goal that Kroto recommends we work overtime to achieve, and that Payne et al. attempt to accomplish through a University–Museum Partnership. The University of Wisconsin–Madison interns (graduate and undergraduate students) team activities of IPSE (Internships in Public Science Education) will give you excellent ideas to share with your local museums for various outreach programs. Hipps also reminds us that summer is a great time to impact the wider chemistry community.

Don’t forget that ChemEd 2005 is just around the corner. Hope to see you in Vancouver, Canada, July 31–August 4. For further details see the Web site (accessed Mar 2005).

Literature Cited

1. McFarland, A. D.; Haynes, C. L.; Mirkin, C. A.; Van Duyne, R. P.; Godwin, H. A. J. Chem. Educ. 2004, 81, 544A–544B.
2. Margel, H.; Eylon, B-S.; Scherz, Z. J. Chem. Educ. 2004, 81, 558.
3. Campbell, D. J.; Freidinger, E. R.; Hastings, J. M.; Querns, M. K. J. Chem. Educ. 2002, 79, 201–202.
4. Chanteau, S. H.; Ruths, T.; Tour, J. M. J. Chem. Educ. 2003, 80, 395–400.
5. Lisensky, G. C.; Condren, S. M.; Widstrand, C. G.; Breitzer, J.; Ellis, A. B. J. Chem. Educ. 2001, 78, 1664A–1664B.