From the Editor
From the Editor
It was just another day at school for Rikako, who is 10 years old and lives in Japan. With her colorful clothes, her lunch bag packed with snacks and fruit, she went about her day, most likely without thinking much about the world around her.
But for that day’s activity, Rikako’s teacher planned for the students to draw and paint on a subject that is all around them: chemistry. “Why chemistry?” the students probably thought. The teacher explained to them that there was a poster contest on the theme of “It’s a chemical world.” “Have you ever thought that we live in a chemical world?” the teacher asked. “How much chemistry do you think is going into the materials around you, the plastics and paints, into the medicines, into the fuel used to generate energy, into the food and the preservatives?” Without saying more, the teacher let them come forward with ideas that reflected how they perceived the world around them, and how chemistry affected it.
Rikako and her schoolmates were not alone as they scratched their chins while thinking of something to draw. Last spring, about 400 young students from around the world submitted works to the poster contest initiated by IUPAC and managed in collaboration with Science Across the World (SAW). The children were not all as young as Rikako; in fact, the contest called for students as old as 16.
This initiative of the IUPAC Subcommittee on the Public Understanding of Chemistry (PUC) benefited from the energy and enthusiasm of its chairman Peter Mahaffy and member Lida Shoen. The effort was driven by the conviction that if the chemistry community is to improve its image and popularity, the discipline itself must help the public to understand what it does and how it contributes to everyone’s everyday life. Therefore, PUC wanted to start by learning how young people perceive living in a chemical world. A poster contest seemed a perfect fit, and with the support of SAW and the help of Kathy Darvesh from the Canadian Society for Chemistry, they pulled off an amazing display of about 25 posters during the IUPAC Congress in Ottawa in August 2003.
For those who missed the display in Ottawa, we offer a few pages in this issue to show the 10 winning entries (in print p. 4). Rikako, the youngest winner, recognized that chemistry is in the dyes of her dress and the drugs and food that make her healthy. But to the eyes of others, chemistry is also part of the problem; for example, using and abusing nature by producing non-recyclable plastics and chemicals that deplete the ozone layer and make acid rain. Now that we have the posters before us, it is for us adults to think about our message to the youth of this world. A few among them will be tomorrow’s chemists, but we need to convince more than a few that science and chemistry are keys to making this world a better place to live.
Fabienne Meyers
www.iupac.org/publications/ci
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Artikel in diesem Heft
- From the Editor
- Contents
- President’s Column
- “It's A Chemical World!”– The Overwhelming Success of A Poster Competition
- IUPAC in Ottawa
- Safety Training Fellows Visit Japan, South Africa, and USA in 2002 and 2003
- A Central Position for Hydrogen in the Periodic Table
- Samsung Gives Gift to the IUPAC Macromolecular Division
- Pirketta Scharlin Received the 2003 Franzosini Award
- Letters from Readers
- Chemistry's Contributions to Humanity–A Feasibility Study
- The Use of AFM in Direct Surface Force Measurements
- Ionic Strength Corrections for Stability Constants
- Critically Evaluated Propagation Rate Coefficients in Free-Radical Polymerizations: Part III. Methacrylates with Cyclic Ester Groups (IUPAC Technical Report)
- Minimum Requirements for Reporting Analytical Data for Environmental Samples (IUPAC Technical Report)
- Atomic Weights of the Elements 2001 (IUPAC Technical Report)
- Regulatory Limits for Pesticide Residues in Water
- Provisional Recommendations
- On the Claims for the Discovery of Elements 110, 111, 112, 114, 116, and 118 (IUPAC Technical Report)
- Measurement of the Thermodynamic Properties of Single Phases, Vol. VI
- Progress in Polymer Science and Technology
- Solubility Equilibria–in Honor of Heinz Gamsjäger
- Introduction to Modern Inorganic Chemistry
- High Temperature Materials Chemistry
- Plasma Chemistry
- Organo-Metallic Chemistry
- Analytical Chemistry in Africa
- qPCR Technology
- Heterocyclic Chemistry
- Macromolecules
- Polymer Biomaterials
- Photochemistry
- Mark Your Calendar
- Index for 2003
Artikel in diesem Heft
- From the Editor
- Contents
- President’s Column
- “It's A Chemical World!”– The Overwhelming Success of A Poster Competition
- IUPAC in Ottawa
- Safety Training Fellows Visit Japan, South Africa, and USA in 2002 and 2003
- A Central Position for Hydrogen in the Periodic Table
- Samsung Gives Gift to the IUPAC Macromolecular Division
- Pirketta Scharlin Received the 2003 Franzosini Award
- Letters from Readers
- Chemistry's Contributions to Humanity–A Feasibility Study
- The Use of AFM in Direct Surface Force Measurements
- Ionic Strength Corrections for Stability Constants
- Critically Evaluated Propagation Rate Coefficients in Free-Radical Polymerizations: Part III. Methacrylates with Cyclic Ester Groups (IUPAC Technical Report)
- Minimum Requirements for Reporting Analytical Data for Environmental Samples (IUPAC Technical Report)
- Atomic Weights of the Elements 2001 (IUPAC Technical Report)
- Regulatory Limits for Pesticide Residues in Water
- Provisional Recommendations
- On the Claims for the Discovery of Elements 110, 111, 112, 114, 116, and 118 (IUPAC Technical Report)
- Measurement of the Thermodynamic Properties of Single Phases, Vol. VI
- Progress in Polymer Science and Technology
- Solubility Equilibria–in Honor of Heinz Gamsjäger
- Introduction to Modern Inorganic Chemistry
- High Temperature Materials Chemistry
- Plasma Chemistry
- Organo-Metallic Chemistry
- Analytical Chemistry in Africa
- qPCR Technology
- Heterocyclic Chemistry
- Macromolecules
- Polymer Biomaterials
- Photochemistry
- Mark Your Calendar
- Index for 2003
