ACS is offering an upcoming webinar highlighting safety called "Tales, Investigations, and Lessons Learned". The role of the US Chemical Safety Board will be defined. Root cause investigations of chemical accidents will be reviewed. Tips on how to prevent chemical accidents will be reviewed.
The Journal of Chemical Education is providing open access to the January 2014 issue. If you don't already have a subscriptiion, this is an excellent opportunity to check out what they have to offer. The new American Association of Chemistry Teachers (AACT) is highlighted in several articles within the January issue.
By way of introducing myself, I'd like to respond to Deanna Cullen's blog post about social media here on ChemEd X with some ideas of my own. The reason I'm here is that Deanna found me through following one of the chemistry-related Twitter chats and invited me to join ChemEd X as a contributor. I currently teach IBDP Chemistry at the American International School of Bucharest. Since my early days as a teacher, I have utilized technology throughout my instruction. I also incorporate some ideas from the modeling chemistry movement to help my students understand chemistry at the particle level. I'm hoping to share some ideas that will inspire you to try new things, and I'm also expecting to learn a lot from all of you that interact with us here at ChemEd X.
As I follow the conversations about the most recent chemistry classroom accident in Manhattan (see my previous blog post), I see that many agree that we need to advocate for adequate required safety training of our present and pre-service teachers. A good starting point is to pursue training on our own.
When it is cold outside...why not blow bubbles?
The national ACS James Bryant Conant award was established in 1965 to encourage and recognize outstanding high school chemistry teachers. Candidates are chosen based upon evidence of high quality teaching, ability to challenge and inspire, extracurricular activities that support their work and pursuit of continued improvement of their role as an educator.
Chemistry teachers are always looking for new ideas to reach students. Social media is a new frontier to reach students AND collaborate with other chemistry teachers around the world 24/7. I hesitated to join Twitter because it seemed like "just one more thing to add to my plate". I did finally log on and created an account.
Have you ever seen the soap boat experiment? Check out the video.
The Chemical Adventures of Sherlock Holmes series is the first virtual issue of the Journal of Chemical Education. It is no longer available in print.
