This month's cover showing strikingly colored fall foliage is related to the article Chem-Is-Tree, by Dana M. Barry, page 1175, and to JCE Classroom Activity #2, which appears on pages 1176A and 1176B. Barry provides interesting and useful information about trees, their constituent substances, and the many uses we make of those substances. This month's JCE Classroom Activity deals with anthocyanins, the substances that produce the beautiful reds and purples of fall foliage, and the colors of many flowers and vegetables as well. Red-cabbage indicator is one example of a practical application of anthocyanins, and many others are explored in this month's activity. Extracting ground-up petunias petals with isopropyl alcohol, for example, produces an indicator solution. In the photo below, the indicator solution is in the center test tube, the solution's color with vinegar is on the left, and its color with ammonia is on the right.

Both Barry's paper and the JCE Classroom Activity will be of interest to high school teachers as well as college faculty. Another item of interest to high school teachers is the outreach program described on page 1178 by Van Doren, Nestor, and Knighton. Their program, in which a mystery is solved by chemical tests and application of logic, could be readily adapted to a classroom or laboratory situation. On page 1180 Perrin explains how what is normally called a crib sheet can be used creatively to help structure students' learning and to focus their attention on the most important aspects of the chemistry they are studying.

Teachers concerned about laboratory safety will appreciate Everett's paper "Eliminating Mercury Thermometers from the Lab" (page 1204). Project Longhorn (Busboom, page 1181 t) just has to be from Texas! It describes how a high school teacher can collaborate successfully with college staff to use a computer-based quiz/homework system that otherwise would be prohibitively expensive in resources and time.

It is always a pleasure to see a review of a book that can be really useful for a teacher. The same applies to software that can be helpful for students trying to learn chemistry. Every book and the one software program reviewed in this issue gets high marks. The software is MathBrowser, reviewed by Goldsmith beginning on page 1164. This program provides World Wide Web access to documents prepared using Mathcad mathematical software and may be useful to both high school and college teachers whose students need to (or want to) explore mathematical models.

Three of the books reviewed are definitely of interest to all teachers. Harris recommends each of them for a different purpose, beginning on page 1167. Teaching Secondary School Science: Strategies for Developing Science Literacy is a textbook for pre-service teachers that has reached its sixth edition. Constructing Science in Middle and Secondary School Classroom takes a strong stand in favor of the constructivist position and will be provocative reading for college as well as pre-college teachers. Any book by Dudley Herron is a must for the shelves of all chemistry teachers, and The Chemistry Classroom is a shining example. Harris recommends it for college teachers and high school teachers.

Pagni has reviewed a pair of organic chemistry workbooks, Beginning Organic Chemistry, 1 and 2 (page 1169) and finds them to be useful adjuncts to typical textbooks. At a more advanced level, Richter (page 1170) praises Modern Techniques of Electroanalysis as "an excellent series of reviews that both educators and researchers should find useful."

In a commentary Barrow argues that "Currently there are two very different, usually unrecognized, views of what introductory chemistry is." And, "Only if we are aware of these views can we move beyond the introductory chemistry courses that so many students find troublesome and useless." Turn to page 1154 and see whether you agree with him.

In another commentary Susskind (page 1156) makes a strong case for better articulation between two-year and four-year campuses and provides some examples of how and why it should happen. Koch, Koch, and Lodder describe a different kind of articulationbetween colleges in the U.S. and the Netherlandsfor the purpose of enhancing and broadening undergraduate students' research opportunities and their cultural backgrounds. Clearly it works, because nearly 40 students have participated in the program since 1985.