News from Journal House

ChemPRIME Awaits Your Contribution

ChemPRIME (Chemical Principles through Integrated Multiple Exemplars) offers an opportunity for scholars and students in all fields of chemistry and beyond to collaborate with each other to create an online chemistry textbook combining the logical development of concepts found in traditional general chemistry textbooks with the power of case studies. Each chemical concept is developed through multiple specific exemplars from fields including geology, biology, astronomy, chemistry in culture, and even chemistry in everyday life. We are especially excited about attracting contributors who can provide examples of how chemistry is used in different fields. We plan a “top down” approach (1), providing exemplars that entice students to learn each underlying chemical concept.

Wiki technology holds great appeal to those interested in collaborative resources, and it is now being realized as a tool for ChemPRIME at the Chemical Education Digital Library. A whole textbook, Chemistry written by John Moore, William G. Davies, and Ronald W. Collins serves as the foundation for the ChemPRIME wiki text. Clicking on any link in the table of contents instantly brings students to a menu from which they may choose CoreChem (the traditional text discussing the chemical concept), or exemplars from any field that develop the same concepts. A final menu choice leads to a Moodle Quiz (2) on the concept. We have begun with a small selection of exemplars, but as a wiki, ChemPRIME is incomplete and editable, so new and exciting developments in any field can be added to this ever-changing textbook. It is also easy to include resources (such as molecular models or videos) from the ChemEd DL that may help students to understand the material better. We encourage you to come over to ChemPRIME and contribute some of your expertise to the evolution of this living text, or encourage your students to create exemplars that reflect their interests and expertise. If you would like to join this project, contact Ed Vitz and/or John Moore.

ChemPRIME is found in the ChemEd Digital Library.

Acknowledgment: We gratefully acknowledge support for ChemPRIME by the National Science Foundation (CCLI/DUE 0837607).

Literature Cited

1. Introducing concepts through higher level, motivating examples is an approach favored by many teachers. See for example: Wilson, E. O. The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth; W. W. Norton & Co.: New York, 2007; Chapter 14.
2. Moodle (Modular Object Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment) is a freeware course management system that is available for trial use on the ChemEd Digital Library.

Awards Announced

2009 James Flack Norris Award Announced

William F. Polik, the Edward and Elizabeth Hofma Professor of Chemistry at Hope College in Holland, MI, has been named the winner of the 2009 James Flack Norris Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Teaching of Chemistry by the Northeastern Section of the American Chemical Society (NESACS). This annual award was established in 1950 by NESACS to honor the memory of James Flack Norris (1871–1940), professor of chemistry at Simmons College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, chair of NESACS in 1904, and ACS President in 1925–26.

Polik, who received a B.A. in chemistry and mathematics (Phi Beta Kappa) from Dartmouth College in 1982, joined the faculty of Hope College in 1988 after receiving his Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley. A molecular spectroscopist, he is a member of the American Chemical Society, American Physical Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Council for Undergraduate Research. He works very closely with undergraduate students in his research laboratory and is active in the development of Web-based materials for the teaching of physical chemistry. He has been recognized for his achievements in the past through receipt of an NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award, Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation Fellowship, the Hope College Provost’s Award for Teaching Excellence, and election as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

The Norris Award, consisting of a plaque and $3,000, will be presented to Polik at the NESACS meeting on November 12, 2009, at Boston University in recognition of his outstanding work as a teacher and mentor and his leadership as member and chair of the ACS Committee on Professional Training (CPT) in developing the new guidelines for undergraduate chemistry programs and bringing them toward implementation.

American Scientific Glassblowers Society Award

Tracy Drier, University of Wisconsin–Madison, has received the 2009 Wale Award from the American Scientific Glassblowers Society. The award was given to recognize Drier’s presentation, GI Digester Construction, judged the best technical presentation at the society’s meeting in June 2009.

Green Chemistry: ACS Hancock Award

Joseph B. Binder, a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, has won the 2009 Kenneth G. Hancock Memorial Award in Green Chemistry. This national award, sponsored by the ACS Division of Environmental Chemistry and the National Institute of Standards & Technology, honors a graduate student for furthering the goals of green chemistry through research or education. Binder won the award for developing simply processes to transform crude biomass into useful fuels and chemicals, and for adapting olefin metathesis reactions to aqueous solvents. He will receive the Hancock Award at a ceremony at the Carnegie Institution in Washington, DC, in conjunction with the annual ceremony for the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards.

The award was established by colleagues of Kenneth G. Hancock, an early proponent of green chemistry and an active advocate of emphasizing the role of chemists and chemistry not only in solving environmental problems of the past, but more importantly, in avoiding environmental problems in the future in an economically viable fashion. He was Director of the Division of Chemistry at the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Courses, Seminars, Meetings, Opportunities

Chemical Drawing Package Available to Schools

As part of their 15th anniversary celebrations, Advanced Chemistry Development, Inc., (ACD/Labs) has launched a new program in which they will provide site-wide licenses of their chemical structure drawing package, ACD/ChemSketch Freeware, to academic institutions. The new ACD/Labs Chem Sketch Education Access Program (CEAP) brings the benefits of a unified structure drawing package to schools without the pain of individual students and/or educators independently downloading freeware onto their machines.

ACD/Labs has also set the Virtual Laboratory Challenge for educators: share innovative ways in which you have used ACS/Labs software in teaching (with an overview of the materials used) for a chance to win up to $5000 in ACD/Labs software for your laboratory or school. To learn more about CEAP, visit the Web site (accessed Jun 2009).

BCCE 2010: A New Decade for Opportunity

The Department of Chemistry at the University of North Texas, Denton, TX, is proud to host the 21st Biennial Conference on Chemical Education (BCCE), to be held August 1–5, 2010. The BCCEs, sponsored by the ACS Division of Chemical Education, are the largest gatherings of chemical educators in the world. They are designed for the broad ChemEd community of researchers and practitioners from all academic levels and emphasize the improvement of chemical education and relate modern developments in chemistry to classroom instruction.

Call for Symposia and Workshops

The general chair of the 21st BCCE in 2010, dubbed the CaNe Roundup, is Diana Mason. She is overseeing the plenary lectures, symposia, workshops, chemical demonstrations, poster sessions, exhibits, and tours. Program co-chairs Amina El-Ashmawy and Maria Oliver-Hoyo invite you to submit symposia of interest to the chemical education community. Possible themes would fit into tracks of chemical education research, laboratory work, advances in pedagogy, green chemistry, computers and technology in chemistry, chemical informatics, global chemistry education, chemistry for the public, and discipline-specific symposia. Proposals are also being accepted for specific programs for secondary education (co-chairs Diane Krone, Jo King, and Bettyann Howson) and two-year college chemistry departments (co-chairs Susan Shih and Thom Jose).

Hands-on workshops relating to chemical education have been historically offered and extremely well received. Direct questions about workshops to Bill Deese, Workshops Chair. Any questions, program ideas, or general suggestions for the BCCE program chairs can be sent to the BCCE.

Proposals for symposia can be accepted through the conference Web site (accessed Jun 2009) until November 6, 2009; workshop proposals will be accepted until December 11, 2009. Presenters may submit abstracts from November 23, 2009 through February 12, 2010.

If you’re wantin’ to learn to talk Texan, jist come on down and get a li’l dose. We’d love to have ya visit. Don’t forget your passports!

Common Chemistry
New Web-Based Source of Chemical Information

Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS), has launched a new, free, Web-based resource: Common Chemistry (accessed Jun 2009).

This resource will be helpful to non-chemists and others who might know either a chemical name or a CAS Registry Number of a common everyday chemical and want to pair both pieces of information. Common Chemistry contains approximately 7,800 chemicals of widespread and general interest, as well as all 118 elements from the periodic table. With the exception of some of the elements, all other substances in this collection were deemed of widespread interest by having been cited 1,000 or more times in the CAS databases. Examples of substances in Common Chemistry include widely recognizable ones such as caffeine, benzoyl peroxide (acne treatment), and sodium chloride (table salt).

“Anyone can easily search by CAS Registry Number or chemical name and confirm the substance details, such as the CAS Registry Number, chemical names or synonyms, molecular formula, chemical structure, and a reciprocal Wikipedia link when available,” said Christine McCue, CAS Vice President, Marketing. “Visitors also have the ability to bookmark the page using social media tools, such as Delicious and Digg.”

While not intended to be a comprehensive CAS Registry Number (CAS RN) lookup service, Common Chemistry does provide access to information on chemicals of general interest. The CAS Registry Number is recognized throughout the world as the most commonly used, unique identifier of chemical substances. The full CAS REGISTRY database contains more than 46 million organic and inorganic substances. Research discovery and patent tools such as SciFinder and STN allow users to search the entire database.

CAS thanks the Wikipedia volunteers, especially Martin Walker at SUNY Potsdam, who collaborated with CAS to provide the links to Wikipedia records (when available). The Common Chemistry database will be updated periodically and Wikipedia links will be added when possible.

CAS, a division of the American Chemical Society, provides the world’s largest and most current collection of chemical and related scientific information, including the most authoritative database of chemical substances, the CAS REGISTRY. CAS combines these databases with advanced search and analysis technologies to deliver the most complete, cross-linked and effective digital information environment for scientific research and discovery, including such products as SciFinder, STN, STN Express, and STN AnaVist, among others. See the CAS Web site (accessed Jun 2009).

L.A.B. Exhibition and Conference

Leipziger Messe has announced that L.A.B.—the trade fair and conference for analysis, bio, and laboratory equipment in the UK—will be held for the second time October 27–29, 2009 at the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) in Birmingham, U.K. L.A.B. is aimed at manufacturers and users of analysis, biotechnology, and laboratory equipment in the pharmaceutical, chemical, food, and tobacco industries, as well as public and private sector organizations in medical and environmental engineering. For more information on L.A.B. 2009, please email or visit the Web site; registration (both sites accessed Jun 2009).