News from Journal House

Earth Day 2004

The February issue of the Journal will feature articles in honor of Chemists Celebrate Earth Day with a focus on water-quality. The topics of the articles include: problem-based projects on drinking water; laboratory experiments investigating water and soil; laboratory exercises using green chemistry; and a discussion of arsenic in drinking water.

Dynamic Visualization in Chemistry

Dynamic Visualization in Chemistry has been released by JCE Software and shipped to those who have placed orders. Get more information about Dynamic Visualization in Chemistry online and see the abstract as it appeared in the September 2003 issue of JCE.

Dynamic Visualization in Chemistry “zooms in” on what actually happens during physical and chemical processes. Each of the four multimedia presentations is designed to help chemistry students acquire a dynamic, three-dimensional, atomic-level visualization of matter and to use this view to explain and ultimately predict the behavior of materials. It integrates video of experiments and animations of theoretical models. The four titles are:

• Reaction of Galena with Acid
• Intermetallic Compound Formation
• Sublimation of Ice
• Intercalation

Dynamic Visualization in Chemistry, Special Issue 31, is a CD-ROM for both Mac OS and Windows. To purchase this CD-ROM or for information about its use by a library or Wide Area Network (WAN), including WWW, contact JCE Software.

Thank You, Project Chemlab Reviewers

We acknowledge here the Project Chemlab reviewers for the year 2003. Thanks go to this stalwart group for the time and expertise they contribute to providing more extensive reviews and annotations of manuscripts for laboratory experiments. The CHED Committee on Project Chemlab is chaired by Carolyn B. Allen. New members of the committee in 2003 are Daniel Bernier, Mark Fritz, Alan Hazari, Leroy E. Laverman, and Ponnadurai Ramasami.

Carolyn B. Allen, Ronald A. Bailey, Isabel Ball, Elisabeth T. Bell-Loncella, Daniel Bernier, Robert D. Braun, Kenneth H. Brown, Stanley Bunce, Lynn Carlson, Kelley J. Donaghy, Thomas H. Eberlein, Mark Fritz, Ping Y. Furlan, Michael Guarnieri, John Hanson, James K. Hardy, Alan Hazari, James W. Hovick, Ramee Indralingam, Albert W. Jache, Michael P. Jansen, Ishenkumba Kahwa, Susan J. Klein, Jim Konzelman, Leroy E. Laverman, Joe L. March, Edward R. Matjeka, Sarah F. McDuffie, Larry McGahey, Robert W. Milne, Jonathan Mitschele, Maria T. Oliver-Hoyo, Shallee T. Page, Owen Priest, Ponnadurai Ramasami, Manit Rappon, Paul W. Rasmussen, Patricia Redden, John M. Risley, Nuria Rodriguez, Marie Sherman, Darren G. Stoub, Louise Stracener, Worth E. Vaughan, Don L. Warner, Kathryn R. Williams, John Woolcock, John F. Zimmerman

Awards Announced

2003 James Flack Norris Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Teaching of Chemistry, sponsored by the Northeastern Section of the American Chemical Society

• David N. Harpp, McGill University, Montreal, Canada

The Norris Award, established in 1950 by the Northeastern Section of the American Chemical Society, was made possible by a bequest from Anne C. Norris to perpetuate the memory of her husband, James F. Norris, who was a professor of chemistry at Simmons College from 1904–1915 and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1916–1940. He was President of the American Chemical Society in 1925–1926.

The award, which includes a citation and an honorarium, will be presented to Harpp on November 13, 2003. The title of Harpp’s talk is “Communicating Chemistry—From Large Classes to the Larger Public”.

Harpp has made notable contributions in the teaching of chemistry, including introductory organic chemistry as well as a suite of highly popular courses at McGill entitled “The World of Chemistry” that deal with such subjects as the practical considerations of food, drugs, and modern technology, including aspects of the environment. He was instrumental in organizing a chemistry program of demonstrations and lectures for the UNESCO pavilion at the “Man and His World” world exhibition in Montreal in 1980 and 1981, and he spearheaded one of the largest chemical exhibitions in history in 1995 in Montreal —“The Chemistry Show” at Expotec—that attracted 370,000 people. Harpp’s area of research is organosulfur chemistry, in which he has published more than 200 articles.

2003 Thermal Analysis Education Grant, sponsored by Mettler–Toledo

• Christopher Li, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA

The 2003 Mettler–Toledo Thermal Analysis Education Grant, an annual award, was presented to Christopher Li. The award honors Edith A. Turi of the Polymer Research Institute at the Polytechnic University in Brooklyn, and acknowledges exemplary work in thermal analysis education.

Not-for-profit organizations and educational institutions in the U.S. and Canada that confer degrees up to the Ph.D. level and provide or intend to provide education in thermal analysis are invited to apply for this grant. The grant will consist of thermal analysis techniques and modules from Mettler–Toledo, along with software, computer equipment, and accessories with a value that can exceed $125,000. Instrumentation and software will be awarded, within certain limits, according to the needs of the organization applying for the grant. Requests for applications and all questions should be directed to Tom Basalik, Thermal Analysis Business Manager, Mettler–Toledo, Inc., 1900 Polaris Parkway, Columbus, OH 43240; phone: 1-800/638-8537; fax: 614/985-8283. Written applications for the 2004 grant must be submitted by April 21, 2004 to Mettler–Toledo at the address above.

Award Deadlines

Nominations for “Green Chemistry” Awards

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is now accepting nominations for the 2004 Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards. These prestigious Presidential-rank awards recognize innovative chemical technologies that incorporate green chemistry into chemical design, manufacture and use—and that have broad applications in industry.

Green chemistry is the use of chemistry to prevent pollution. Nominated technologies should reduce or eliminate the use or generation of hazardous substances from a chemical product or process. Any individual, group, or organization, both nonprofit and for profit—including academia, government, and industry—may nominate a green chemistry technology for these awards. Self-nominations are welcome and expected. Typically, five awards are given each year: one to an academic researcher, one to a small business, and the rest in specific areas of green chemistry. Each nominated technology must have reached a significant milestone within the past five years in the United States. To be eligible for the 2004 awards, nominations must be postmarked by December 31, 2003; awards will be presented at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC, on June 29, 2004. For more information, go to the EPA Web site (accessed Oct 2003).

Nominations for James Flack Norris Award

The American Chemical Society Northeastern Section invites nominations for the James Flack Norris Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Teaching of Chemistry. Teachers at the high school, undergraduate, and/or graduate level are eligible for the award, which consists of $3,000 and a certificate.

Nominations should focus on the candidate’s contributions to and effectiveness in teaching chemistry. The nominee’s condensed curriculum vitae, with a list of honors, awards, and publications related to chemical education, should be included. Seconding letters are also an important part of a nomination packet, which should not exceed 30 pages. Materials should be of 8 1/2 × 11-inch size, and should not include books or reprints.

Send nomination packets (as hard copy, or electronically in Adobe PDF format) to Ms. Marilou Cashman, NESACS, 23 Cottage Street, Natick, MA 01760-5834. For more information, go to the NESACS Web site or contact Frederick D. Greene; phone: 617/253-1840. Nominations are due before April 16, 2004.

Courses, Seminars, Meetings,Opportunities

Call for Contributions: Chemical Education Research

The Chemical Education Research feature of the Journal of Chemical Education plans to publish in a single issue a special collection of articles devoted to exemplary research on “Student Outcomes of NSF-sponsored Systemic Change”. This is a call for contributions to this special collection, which will appear as soon as possible after 5–6 research articles on this topic have been accepted for publication. Our plan is to present the research papers both in print and at a symposium at an upcoming ACS Meeting or Biennial Conference on Chemical Education (BCCE).

This special collection of papers in the Chemical Education Research feature is expected to provide a body of focused research on the topic of student outcomes that are the result of the implementation of innovative curricula and/or teaching techniques developed under the NSF Systemic Curriculum Initiative. Papers submitted are expected to serve the needs of all Journal readers—teacher–practitioners as well as chemical education researchers.

The articles submitted for this special feature of the Chemical Education Research section should conform to these guidelines:

1. Articles should contain complete and informative Abstract, Introduction, and Conclusion sections that, when taken together, provide the teacher–practitioner with a coherent overall picture of the chemical education research questions investigated, the results of this investigation, and the application of those results to improve teaching.
2. The content of the articles should be presented in sections headed Theory, Research Question, Sample, Experimental Design (including instrument description and reliability and validity data), Data, and Results. The text in these sections should be written as concisely as possible, while providing a chemical education researcher with sufficient detail to evaluate the quality and usefulness of the research. These same section headings, with some modification, should be applicable for quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-design projects.
3. There should be an extended bibliography to support assertions and the theoretical basis of the research. The bibliography should also provide additional data on the tools used in the research.
4. Articles should be written to include both a print and Web component. The print component should be no longer than 4000 words (this will be roughly five Journal pages). Details on the data collected, instruments used, and extensive student comments (for qualitative or mixed-design research) should be referenced in the print component but found in their entirety in the Web component.

All manuscripts submitted for this special collection should be sent to the Journal in the usual way, but authors should include a statement in the cover letter requesting that the manuscripts be considered for the special Systemic Initiatives Chemical Education Research collection. (Manuscripts not accepted for inclusion in the special collection will be considered for regular publication in the Journal.)

For additional information contact Diane Bunce, Department of Chemistry, Catholic University, 620 Michigan Avenue NE, Washington, DC 20064. The JCE Guide to Submissions ia available at JCE Online.

ACS 2004 Chemistry Workshops

The Education Division of the American Chemical Society (ACS) is sponsoring workshops to help prospective users of the new textbook, Chemistry (a project of the ACS), develop a better understanding of the book’s content and pedagogy and how it has worked in classrooms. The new text, part of a new initiative to re-think and re-work the general chemistry course, is designed to support and reinforce an activity-based, student-centered approach to teaching general chemistry. It includes traditional chemistry concepts in a non-traditional order using pedagogy built on active learning and group interactions. Concepts and principles are developed as often as possible by the analysis of data obtained in classroom activities, an approach that requires more effort on the part of both students and instructors.

There will be a half-day workshop on March 27, 2004, preceding the Spring ACS Meeting in Anaheim, CA, and a one-and-one-half-day workshop July 16–17, 2004, preceding the Biennial Conference on Chemical Education in Ames, IA. For more information on applying for these workshops and obtaining a draft copy of the textbook, contact Marta Gmurczyk.

CHED International Activities Committee Symposia

The International Activities Committee of the ACS Division of Chemical Education has organized symposia at several upcoming international meetings. Those interested in participating or receiving more information should contact Zafra Lerman, the committee’s chair.

• FLAQ: Salvador, Bahia, Brazil
  The committee is organizing a chemical education symposium for the meeting of Latin American Federation of Chemical Associations (FLAQ), to be held May 30–June 3, 2004, in Bahia, Brazil.
• 18th ICCE: Istanbul, Turkey
  The 18th International Conference on Chemical Education with the theme “Chemistry Education for the Modern World” will be held August 3–8, 2004, in Istanbul, Turkey. More information is available online.
• 5th Int’l. Congress on Chemistry: Havana, Cuba
  This congress on chemistry and chemical education will be held October 18–22, 2004, in Havana, Cuba. More information about the conference is available online. Note that U.S. citizens going to Cuba must obtain a travel license from the U.S. Department of the Treasury. The committee will request the license for all interested persons as a group; to be included in this group contact Zafra Lerman, the committee chair, by January 2004.
• Pacifichem 2005: Honolulu, Hawai
  Pacifichem will be held December 15–20, 2005 in Honolulu, Hawaii. The committee is co-sponsoring the symposium, “Multimedia and Visualization in Chemistry for the Major and the Non-Science Major”. More information may be found online.

CUR: Recruiting Students

For graduate programs working hard to recruit high quality undergraduate chemistry and biochemistry students with research experience, please consider subscribing to the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) Undergraduate Researchers Registry. This registry was created by CUR to assist your recruiting efforts. All proceeds generated by subscriptions go directly to fund summer research fellowships for undergraduates. Access to the registry will cost a department $1,500 (about the cost of a single recruiting trip). An institutional subscription costs $4,500 and includes access to Biology, Biochemistry, Chemistry, Geology, Physics, and Psychology registries. Profiles contained within the registry (submitted by students) provide sub-disciplinary interests, geographic preference, research experience, and transcript information. This information should help you make targeted recruiting efforts with students who plan to pursue an advanced degree.

Get more information online (accessed Oct 2003) or contact Kerry K. Karukstis, Department of Chemistry, Harvey Mudd College, 301 East Twelfth Street, Claremont, CA 91711.

PITTCON 2004

The 55th Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy, to be held at McCormick Place in Chicago, IL, from March 7–12, 2004, announces that Larry Faulkner will present a plenary lecture, “Good Chemical Measurements and Good Public Policies”. Faulkner, a chemist, is president of The University of Texas at Austin. His presentation will cover (a) illustrations of the impact of analytical chemistry on public debate and public policy, including instances where analytical capabilities actually have given rise to new issues and policies; (b) the manner in which chemical information is handled and understood in public debates; (c) areas of analytical chemistry that will be critical to sound public policy in the future; and (d) implications for the education of leaders and general citizens of modern societies. Information about PITTCON 2004 may be found online.