News from Journal House

More Blogging: Especially for High School Teachers

The blogs are part of the Expert Voices area of the National Science Digital Library (NSDL). To find the Especially columns, look for the Chemical Education Digital Library link in the K12 Teachers heading, and then choose High School from among the Categories listed at the right of your screen.

ChemEd DL Online Workshops

There will be more of these online workshops as soon as we are able to schedule them with NSDL, which will probably be in fall 2008. Watch this column for announcements.

JCE Sponsors Social Events

The Journal is one of the sponsors of the new CHED Social Hour that debuts at the Spring ACS Meeting in New Orleans. See p 34 and watch for updates in future JCE issues. Journal staff look forward to seeing old friends and making new ones. It is always good to put a face with an email correspondent.

BCCE 20 at Indiana University

Journal staff will don aprons to scoop ice cream again, this time on Tuesday evening, July 29. The BCCE’s evening activity for that day will be an art walk/pub crawl with an ice cream social at Bloomington’s WonderLab Museum of Science, Health, and Technology. JCE will share sponsorship of the activity with colleagues from 2YC₃. We hope to see you there!

Award Deadlines

Nominations for the James Flack Norris Award

Nominees must have served with special distinction as teachers of chemistry at any level: secondary school, college, and/or graduate school. Since 1951, awardees have included eminent and less-widely-known but equally effective teachers at all levels.

Nominations should focus on the candidate’s contributions to and effectiveness in teaching chemistry. The nominee’s curriculum vitae should be included and, where appropriate, a list of honors, awards, and publications related to chemical education. Seconding letters are an important part of a nominating packet. These may show the impact of the nominee’s teaching in inspiring colleagues and students toward an active life in chemistry and/or related sciences, or may attest to the influence of the nominee’s other activities in chemical education, such as textbooks, journal articles, or other professional activity at the local or national level. The Committee looks for impact of the candidate’s activities at the national or international level.

The nomination materials should consist of a primary nomination letter, supporting letters, the candidate’s curriculum vitae. Reprints or other publications should not be included. The material should not exceed 30 pages. Please direct questions about the content of a nomination to Barry Snider, Brandeis University, the 2008 chairperson of the Norris Award Committee. Send nomination packets electronically in Adobe PDF format) to: Marilou Cashman, Administrative Secretary of NESACS. The annual deadline for nominations is April 15, 2008.

Green Chemistry Awards

Awards Announced

U.S. Chemistry Olympiad Team Earns Four Medals

More than 10,000 high school students took the local qualifying examinations this year in the U.S., and, of these, about 900 were invited to take the national examination written by the Olympiad Examination Task Force and revised and approved by the USNCO subcommittee. Each year twenty of the top scorers on the national examination are invited to the U.S. Air Force Academy for two weeks in early June where they have about 40 hours of lecture on topics in advanced chemistry and about 40 hours of laboratory practice. The camp is under the direction of Kimberly Gardner of the Academy, and the lectures and laboratory work are directed by Academy faculty and three mentors. (The mentors for 2007 were John Kotz, Will Lynch, and Kara Pezzi. A former international Olympian and silver medal recipient, J. L. Kiappes, was a peer mentor again this year). The U.S. Chemistry Olympiad program is under the overall direction of Cecilia Hernandez of the ACS, and the USNCO subcommittee is chaired by Seth Brown of Notre Dame University.

Courses, Seminars, Meetings, Opportunities

ASM Workshops for Teachers

Two semester credits are available to the ASM workshop participants through the University of Washington; a registration fee of $180 is required for this option. More information is available via email or online; accessed Nov 2007.

Molecules That Matter: An Exhibit of Art and History

The top ten molecules—all carbon-based and each associated with one decade of the 20th century—are aspirin, isooctane, penicillin G, polyethylene, nylon, DNA, progestin, DDT, Prozac, and Buckminsterfullerene. Giant-sized, scientifically accurate molecular models of each molecule cluster with science-related contemporary artworks and with historical and cultural artifacts that serve as time capsules of the 20th century.

The exhibition puts a human face on its science in the form of Skidmore chemistry students volunteering as gallery docents. Molecules also sports a complementary Web feature; accessed Nov 2007. The interactive multimedia presentation contains an abundance of scientific, cultural, and historical details, documents, and images that didn’t fit into the Tang’s gallery space, designed with input from a dozen Skidmore students (hailing from a range of majors) under the supervision of Tang staff and Skidmore chemistry professor Ray Giguere. Giguere, who proposed the original concept for Molecules That Matter, also served as its co-curator and scientific overseer.

Molecules That Matter will travel to the Chemical Heritage Foundation’s new Hach Gallery; the College of Wooster, Baylor University, and Grinnell College.

For more information, go to the Tang Museum Web site, which includes the exhibition’s Web site, along with a highly informative Molecules Web feature; all sites accessed Nov 2007.

Green Chemistry Conference