Picks

ChemEd X contributors and staff members are continually coming across items of interest that they feel others may wish to know about. Picks include, but need not be limited to, books, magazines, journals, articles, apps—most anything that has a link to it can qualify.

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pick
Energy for Future Presidents: The Science Behind the Headlines
// Thursday, October 4, 2012 • Hal Harris
Four years ago, I gave a very positive review to Richard Muller's "Physics for Future Presidents", despite his very lukewarm treatment of climate change which, in my opinion, had more than enough scientific gravitas by that time to be treated as a legitimate national and international issue.
Bring the Educational System into This Century
// Friday, August 31, 2012 • Arrietta Clauss
Tammy Erickson states that our current approach to education was designed for a different age.   It was modeled on the needs of industrialization, resulting in separate subjects, standardized curricula, conformity, and batch processing.  The model worked well for 100 years because it satisfied the needs of emp
God's Universe
// Friday, July 27, 2012 • Hal Harris
Owen Gingerich is author of The Book Nobody Read, and an article about Kepler in Physics Today that I have recommended in the past.
Why is Pioneer Slowing?
// Friday, July 27, 2012 • Hal Harris
Pioneer 10 and 11 are spacecrafts launched in 1972 and 1973. You may remember that they include a plaque that shows nude human figures for the titillation of any aliens who may discover them. Physicists have been worried about the fact that they are not moving quite as fast as one would expect (by about 300 miles per year).
Consumatory Scholarship
// Wednesday, June 20, 2012 • Arrietta Clauss
Bruce Henderson in The Chronicle of Higher Education calls faculty to be more proactive in defining their contributions to educational institutions. In this time of cuts to education, university and secondary school faculty must help the general public understand the nature of their contributions.
Demographics of MOOC Students
// Wednesday, June 6, 2012 • Arrietta Clauss
MOOCs, massive open online courses, are gaining credibility. Two organizations offering MOOCs are Coursera and Udacity. These organizations have been fielding demographic surveys to better understand the background of the enrolled students and why they chose to take the MOOC courses.
Chemistry no mystery; or, A lecturer's bequest. Being the subject-matter of a course of lectures, delivered by an old philosopher, and taken in short-hand by one of the audience, whose name is not known
// Friday, May 25, 2012 • Hal Harris
I have in my library several chemistry textbooks from before 1860, but "Chemistry No Mystery" is not one of them.  Reflecting as they do an approximation of the chemistry known at the time, they provide insight about the history of both science and pedagogy.