books

I am a 7th grade teacher who has been teaching a semester of physics and a semester of chemistry at the Harker School in San Jose, CA for the last twenty years. Early on in my career, I made a few observations based on the reactions of my students when I introduced the periodic table of elements to them. 

“Soonish” is a book about the near future, or “near-ish”, anyway. Unlike predictions of what will happen many decades from now, which are inevitably far off the mark, “Soonish” is an attempt to describe technological developments that, while they may not necessarily come to fruition before we all die of a pandemic, at least there have already been

The ¨Alchemy of Us¨ is a wonderful read that should be on every chemistry teacher´s bookshelf. Ainissa Ramirez has crafted a great story book that introduces the non scientist reader to the idea of material science. Does material science influence people or do people influence material science? The answer, I believe is yes.

For my daughter’s first birthday, we got a chemistry book for babies as a present. We were very excited to start reading it to her, especially since I have a master’s degree in chemistry and my husband has a master’s degree in chemical engineering.

The story of the Radium Girls starts right after WWI. At first, the job of painting glow-in-the-dark watch dials seems like a dream come true for the young women working at the United States Radium Corporation in New Jersey.

I’m sure that many of were inspired to some extent by fascination with explosions, and things that go bang in the night. Generations of chemistry teachers have used the thrills of “boom” chemistry to enliven their classes and demonstrations.

One of my goals for 2017 was to read more chemistry non-fiction. I accomplished that with three and a half books read. That doesn't seem like much, but given how busy I've been lately it was quite an accomplishment!