National
Chemistry Week 2007
This
year’s theme was “The Many Faces of Chemistry”—especially
chosen because this was the 20th anniversary of NCW
celebrations for the ACS. It was a great chance to celebrate our
expanding careers, opportunities and colleagues in chemistry.
On
Saturday, October 6th, 2007 we celebrated NCW at the
Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose. The ever-popular
Wheel of Chemistry Fortune was spinning for all children to win a
prize, dozens of kids made jewelry out of UV-beads, decorated shrinky
dinks, discovered acid-base properties of goldenrod paper and had
their fortunes told by polymer fish. The NCW Committee would like to
thank the Children’s Discovery Museum for hosting our event and
Linda Brunauer’s enthusiastic crew of 25 student volunteers
from Santa Clara University. With such a great turn-out of both
volunteers and participants, this was our most interactive and
energetic public outreach booth yet!
Our
highlight for NCW this year was an interactive panel discussion on
“Drugs, Bombs and CSI: Your Future Careers in Chemistry”
aimed at high school and college students and held at De Anza College
in Cupertino on Saturday, October 27th. The NCW Committee would like
to extend special thanks to our panel of distinguished chemists for
enlightening these students to the gamut of careers that are
available starting from a degree in chemistry. From the left in the
picture: Abby Kennedy (at podium), Marjorie Balazs, James Chesko,
Katherine Lara, George Lechner, Natalie McClure, Dave Parker, 2007
ACS Presidential Candidate Howard Peters, Bruce Raby and Cordelia
Willis. We would also like to thank De Anza College for hosting this
great event. Students and their parents were able to socialize,
network and ask their most probing questions about chemistry
educations, careers, and passions.
I would like to thank
Cinzia Muzzi of De Anza College's chemistry department for her
dedication in co-organizing this successful event with me this year.
The
NCW Committee is proud to hear that Cañada College celebrated
National Chemistry Week this year, thanks to the dedication and hard
work of professor Anu Pattanayak and her Cañada colleagues.
Furthermore, NCW celebrations, including a titration competition,
took place south of the Bay Area thanks to volunteer organizer Kristy
Morris from UC Santa Cruz.
This year I received several requests from
local chemists, each
desiring to take a NCW celebration into their child’s
classroom. I am eager for opportunities to work with local parents
and to help them organize NCW events for their local community, so I
will be contacting interested parents next spring as I begin to plan
for NCW 2008.
I would
like to thank Natalie McClure for facilitating our NCW poster contests
this year. One of our entries (shown at the right), by Amelia Milne of
Girl Scout Troop 2562 of Burlingame, of the San Francisco Bay Council
won the national first prize for third and fourth graders!
Finally, I would
like
to thank Lois Durham for her fearless photography skills at both of
our NCW events this year, as well as the other SCV-ACS members who
turned out to set up, celebrate and clean up our events.
Abby Kennedy
2007 NCW Chair