This column is being written one week after the close of the 14th Biennial Conference on Chemical Education. It was a pleasure to meet a number of readers and discuss what they find useful and what they would like to see in the pages of the Journal. Every teacher with whom I talked expressed the desire for more articles containing material that can be used directly in the high school classroom: experiments, demonstrations, teaching tips, and articles on topics of current and widespread interest are four examples that were mentioned. In a symposium on the Future of the Journal of Chemical Education, Lee Marek cited numerous suggestions he received from teachers. Most of those suggestions also were for materials that have direct classroom application.

In order to publish a variety of useful articles there has to be a steady stream of high-quality manuscripts. Have you considered writing an article for the Journal of Chemical Education? You may have developed a laboratory experiment, modified a demonstration, designed an interesting way to help students understand a difficult concept, or perfected a teaching strategy that could benefit your colleagues and their students worldwide. Whether or not you have an idea for a manuscript you can be a part of the Journal's success by serving as a reviewer of manuscripts. If you have an idea for an article you would like to discuss before submitting a manuscript or if you would like to serve as a reviewer please contact me by any of the paths indicated at the end of this column.

October Articles of Potential Interest

This issue contains an article written by A. E. Saieed and K. M. Davies that will be useful in the advanced placement course. The authors detail how low-cost, readily available materials can be used in "A Simple Method for Determining the Temperature Coefficient of Voltaic Cell Voltage: An Application in Exploring the Gibbs-Helmholtz Equation" (page 959).

This issue includes several articles which can provide background and enrichment on a variety of topics. Although the depth of treatment goes well beyond what is possible normally in a high school course there is a great deal of information useful to teachers in each of these articles. One is "Scientific Ethics in Chemical Education" (page 926), by J. Kovac, in which the case is made that "students need to learn how to make good decisions in professional ethics." Although the article is directed primarily toward college chemical education, an awareness of the issues involved can be helpful all who teach. If you are interested in knowing more about the work that led to the discovery of the double helix, an article by H. Booth and M. J. Hey, "DNA Before Watson and Crick - The Pioneering Studies of J. M. Gulland and D. O. Jordan at Nottingham" (page 928), is one that you should read. Gulland and Jordan isolated and analyzed a pure sample of DNA from calf thymus in the 1950s. The article also includes an account of their life histories, thereby providing a link between the science and the scientist as a person. An explanation of how portable electric food coolers work can be found in "Thermoelectric Devices: Solid-State Refrigerators and Electrical Generators in the Classroom" (page 940) by E. J. Winder, A. B. Ellis, and G. C. Lisensky. These devices, which convert thermal energy into electrical energy or electrical energy in thermal energy, are becoming much more widespread in use. Another application described by the authors is using cooling integrated circuits. An interesting analogy between aspects of consumer economics and rate of reaction is made by L. Pogliani and M. N. Berberan-Santos in the article "Inflation Rates, Car Devaluation, and Chemical Kinetics" (page 950). Both 1st order and zero order rates can be observed depending upon the state of the economy. Raymond S. Ochs makes a case for eliminating use of a widely used, but easily misunderstood, term in "Thermodynamics and Spontaneity" (page 952). In explaining the confusion caused by using this term (spontaneity) he demonstrates how many terms convey a meanings to students that are entirely different than what was intended. For teachers who use microscale, D. Kennepohl writes about out-of-class application of this technique in "Home-Study Microlabs" (page 938). Several examples of experiments students can carry out with readily available materials are discussed.

Two articles that deal specifically with college chemical education have implications for high school and elementary school science. One is the account of a preliminary study seeking to determine the relative importance of "Numeric and Conceptual Understanding of General Chemistry at a Minority Institution" (page 1003). The article by Qun Lin, P. Kirsch, and R. Turner is supportive of efforts to include more concept-based strategies in beginning chemistry courses. The other article of potential interest is "A Chemistry Course for Elementary Education Majors: What Is Possible When the Chemistry and Education Departments See Eye to Eye" (page 933), by P. B. Kelter, K. Jacobitz, E. Kean, and A. Hoesing. The article discusses a course designed so that prospective elementary teachers can learn how to help children understand the relationship of chemistry to their world.

The JCE: Software Abstract column provides a means of keeping up with the rapidly growing body of technology-based resources for chemistry teaching and learning, even though many of the items deal with topics emphasized in upper-division college courses (page 924). A glimpse into developments that are having an impact on high school chemistry teaching materials can be found in R. D. Crouch, M. S.. Holden, and C. Samet, "CAChe Molecular Modeling: A Visualization Tool Early in the Undergraduate Chemistry Curriculum" (page 916) and in S. L. Childs and K. S. Hagen, "The Inorganic llustrator: a 3-D Graphical Supplement for Inorganic and Bioinorganic Chemistry Courses Distributed on CD-ROM" (page 917).

Paths to Contact the High School Chemistry Editor

email: jehowell@wave.st.usm.edu

Telephone: 601-266-4375

FAX: 601-266-6075

Mail: J. Emory Howell

Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry

University of Southern Mississippi

Hattiesburg, MS 39406-5043