Kevin MacDermott
C&EN Washington

Nov. 5-11 marked the 13th year of National Chemistry Week (NCW) , when the American Chemical Society holds a week's worth of concentrated public outreach intended to spread understanding of chemistry to the public at large. This year, ACS members highlighted the link between food and chemistry.

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Under the theme "Kitchen Chemistry," local sections and student affiliates chapters designed and conducted activities in schools, libraries, museums, shopping malls, parking lots, and parks--wherever people could be found--and used the activities to give people of all ages a brief look at the fun side of the science and how science benefits them.

ACS also connected with the public through " Chemists Reacting to Hunger ," a food-collection drive to benefit local charities such as food banks and emergency shelters. Thousands of food items were collected across the country through myriad events and efforts.

In support of this year's activities, the ACS Membership Division distributed roughly 200,000 copies of "Get Cooking with Chemistry," an activity booklet geared toward elementary and middle school students. And 65,000 copies of the October issue of ChemMatters ,ACS's publication for high school students, were distributed. It featured articles about the chemistry of food.

ACS's Publications Division also chipped in, granting free access to its online journals and magazines during the week.

Many of the local sections also have Web pages. Although thorough accounts of their NCW activities may be found on the websites, collected at http://membership.acs.org/localist. htm , the following is a sampling of local section NCW highlights:

The South Carolina Section kicked off the celebration early--in October--with its "Chemistry is Electric" electrochemistry demonstrations, which were held at a local library every Monday for seven weeks. Nobel Laureate and Charleston native Robert F. Furchgott, whose studies led to the discovery of the importance of nitric oxide in blood chemistry, gave a lecture to launch the well-attended series.

Event organizers were almost guaranteed success when their events revolved around one particular type of food: candy. The Dayton Section's "Candy Chemistry" event taught visitors to the Boonshoft Museum of Discovery how to make forms of various sweets--which they could eat.

But there's no such thing as a free lunch, they discovered, as the participants then learned how candy leads to tooth decay, courtesy of a local dentist. On the menu were M&Ms (a chromatography experiment), fizz rocks (CO₂ trapped in the candy produces fizz when eaten), edible glass (hard candy--the comparison was made between making candy from sugar and making glass from sand), cotton candy (a demonstration of physical change as granulated sugar becomes cottony fibers), and Yum Yum Gum (an activity in which participants learned to make chewing gum from scratch).

The Delaware Section and the Delaware Valley professional chapter of Alpha Chi Sigma used candy--and a bit of chicanery--to draw in a crowd at a public library in Hockessin. When their purple-colored candy tasted like lemon and their orange sweets tasted like grape, the confused participants got a lesson in the chemistry of taste and smell.

In terms of tasty, popular foods, a close second to candy might be dessert. At the Pittsburgh Section's events at the Carnegie Science Center, Bill Fuller, executive chef with Big Burrito Restaurant Group, cooked up crème brûlée for kids at the event, involving them in the process. Fuller is not only a cook, he's a chemist too. He has a master's degree in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley. Pittsburgh also recruited some 250 volunteers to make the activities a success.

A second culinary celebrity lent a hand to the NCW effort: Holly Clegg, a cookbook author. She made an appearance at the Baton Rouge Section's ChemPals Expo, which was supported by the Iberville Chemical Council. Roughly 325 volunteers helped out during Baton Rouge's three events in their region.

Back in Pennsylvania, the Philadelphia Section held a poster contest for students in the Delaware Valley. The winners' posters were hung in Philadelphia's 30th Street train station and the students received savings bonds and tickets to the Philadelphia Phantoms hockey game on Nov. 19. The Phantoms donated the tickets.

The Kansas City Section organized a high school poster contest on kitchen-related chemistry, which they held at Park University. The first- and second-place winners took home $100 and $75, respectively.

Cash prizes are often incentive enough for competition, but for the Oklahoma Section, revenge can be a motivator too. The University of Central Oklahoma, Edmond, student affiliates chapter held a contest called "Revenge" in which participants could buy tickets for the instructor that they would most like to see doused in a lab safety shower. The three lucky teachers who received the most tickets also received a bath.

Red River Valley Section's water chemistry activity, held at a local mall, gave students a chance to learn about water quality in their area of North Dakota, where water quality is frequently a concern. The students brought in water samples from home and learned to analyze them and compare them to EPA standards, using parameters such as pH; conductivity; total dissolved solids; total hardness; alkalinity; iron, chloride, and sulfate levels; and others. Parents learned about water softening and filtering---more than they bargained for on their trip to the mall.

Shopping malls are a good spot to stage an NCW event. Tried and true, the venue is a favorite among local sections, such as Erie, Eastern Michigan, University of Arkansas, Southern Illinois, and many others.

The Michigan State University Section held "Chemistry Day at the Mall," where organizations and schools staffed 40 tables full of demos and chemistry information. The section designed and produced a patch to give to more than 300 Girl Scouts who participated.

Scouts are a favorite audience for NCW outreach, as demonstrated by the Indiana/Kentucky Border Section's overnight Girl Scout NCW Lock-In. Over the course of the evening and the following morning, 71 girls were able to earn three merit badges each by participating in various demonstrations and experiments at the University of Southern Indiana's science building. The Northern West Virginia Section held a hands-on lab for Girl Scouts at West Virginia University.

The Boy Scouts got their turn too. Enlisting the assistance of local Boy Scout Troop 3, the Philadelphia Section cooked and assembled 168 full dinners for distribution to needy neighbors in Chester County, Pa. And in the Idaho Section, the beneficiary of food collection was "Scouting for Food," a philanthropy facilitated by Boy Scouts in Wyoming and Idaho.

NCW 2000's unifying event, the "Chemists Reacting to Hunger" food drive, proved to be a success. Many local sections and student affiliates chapters put a great deal of emphasis on their food collection and distribution efforts. The Delaware Section, for one, packaged meals for the elderly and needy, as did Chemical Abstracts Service (Columbus Section), which collected 814 lb of food, resulting in 1,628 meals for the Mid-Ohio Food Bank. Pittsburgh collected 2,815 items, and Eastern New York collected more than 900 lb of foodstuffs and monetary donations. Heart O' Texas collected 800 items, and Nashville's "Will Do Chemistry for Food" event brought in more than 1,500 participants and 1,000 cans of food for the local food bank.

Milwaukee's student affiliates chapters at local colleges held a food-drive contest, garnering more than 1,200 items that were donated to Second Harvest of Milwaukee. Aldrich Chemicals donated prizes for the contest winner, Carroll College.

Aldrich was only one of many chemical companies that contributed to National Chemistry Week. Northeast Tennessee's activities for fourth-grade students were held at Eastman Chemical's Employee Center in Kingsport, and roughly 300 Eastman employees helped make the event a success. Bayer Corp.'s chemists helped the New Haven Section put on its mall activities.

The Lake Area Industry Alliance helped the Southwest Louisiana Section and the chemistry faculty of McNeese State University, Lake Charles, to organize a chemistry expo for nearly 3,000 sixth-grade students in Calcasieu Parish.

Chemical firms weren't the only companies to contribute. McDonald's franchises in the Lubbock, Texas, area helped the South Plains Section spread the word on food chemistry. Seven restaurants gave out chemistry questionnaires and game sheets to their customers and awarded the winners gift certificates.

Dow Chemical gave the Brazosport Section a $3,000 donation. That award was doubled through an ACS Challenge 2000 matching grant, which allowed the section to hold a banquet, donate funds to Brazosport College, conduct a demonstration program for local fifth graders, and hold a first-ever NCW golf tournament that served to expose a different audience to chemistry.

And although the St. Louis Section's golf endeavor took place on a much smaller scale, "Atomic Mini Golf" was still a success. Sponsored by Alpha Chi Sigma, Atomic Mini Golf gave players a quick chemistry lesson as well as a turn on the links.

ACS members made their presence known on the gridiron too. California Section members and students from the Alpha Chi Sigma chapter made a tribute at a University of California, Berkeley, home football game on Nov. 4 to the late Berkeley chemistry professor Glenn T. Seaborg. At halftime, members read an address over the stadium loudspeaker while others took to the field with an enormous seaborgium (element 106) banner.

Competition was the name of the game at "College Bowl," the Mid-Hudson Section's chemistry challenge. Held at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., the College Bowl brought college chemistry majors together in teams of four to test their knowledge of chemistry.

Texas Tech University's student affiliates had a similar idea: "Chemistry Wheel of Fortune." More than 300 Texas Tech students competed for NCW prizes and munched element cupcakes as they spelled out chemistry-related words Wheel-of-Fortune style.

Activities such as Texas Tech's game can be difficult when multiple languages are spoken equally in the region. Texas' Brazosport Section addressed the problem by giving bilingual--English and Spanish--demonstrations on their visits to local classrooms and distributing bilingual "Cooking with Chemistry" activity booklets.

Chemistry is for everyone, regardless of language, race, ethnicity, or economic status. In support of this idea, the Columbus Section had an NCW booth at the Columbus International Festival, which is sponsored by the United Nations Association and is considered to be the premier celebration of peace and understanding among different cultures present in central Ohio. More than 12,000 people attended.

The Washington-Idaho Border Section, in cooperation with the University of Idaho student affiliates, sponsored a table at the annual Tutxinmepu Pow-wow of the inland northwest Native American tribes, where members spoke with teachers and children about kitchen chemistry.

The California Los Padres Section presented 11 kitchen-based chemistry demos to roughly 300 predominately minority third graders gathered at the Cal Poly Performing Arts Center in San Luis Obispo. Approximately 100 Cal Poly chemistry students and local teachers volunteered for the event.

The Greater Houston Section treated approximately 2,500 inner-city elementary school students to a field trip to the Houston Museum of Natural Science for the event "Chemistry for Cool Kids."

The North Jersey Section recruited member Ramona Gray to deliver the message of chemistry and a few words of encouragement to the 80 Project SEED and other minority students who participated in the section's museum event. Gray, an African American, overcame adversity similar to what many minority students often face and become a research chemist at Merck & Co. in Rahway, N.J. She was a participant in this summer's hit television show "Survivor," which pitted castaways against each other in a struggle to see who could stay on their deserted island the longest.

Star power is one way to deliver a message, and another is California Section member Randy Schroeder's "StarCar." Signed by several Nobel Laureates and plastered with chemical formulas and images, the car is a method the California Section uses to take the message of chemistry on the road. StarCar made an appearance at section festivities at UC Berkeley.

The section also uses singing to share its chemistry. It's NCW itinerary included a performance by "Elemen of Periodica," a singing group whose songs, posters, and trading cards portray the fictional lives of the elements named Bimut, Carbo, Hydro, as well as others. They performed for the audience assembled at Bret Harte Middle School's Family Science Night.

The Cleveland Section employed a bit of role-playing too with its version of the popular children's cartoon and video game Pokémon, which the section called PokeChem. The section's PokeChem demonstration package explains chemistry to youngsters through the examination of its characters, who have names such as Hydrophobic, Refraction, Indicator, and Gelatinous. PokeChem was performed throughout the Cuyahoga County Public Library system, the Cleveland Public Library system, and two additional area libraries.

Creativity runs rampant during NCW, and it's manifested in many ways. Each November witnesses the emergence of a host of new substances, which carry names that suggest they may have been cooked up by Dr. Seuss or Willy Wonka: glurch, oobleck, peanut butter Play-Doh, and cornstarch non-Newtonian goo.

During NCW 2000, demonstrations with names such as Dancing Raisins, Alka-Seltzer Rockets, Elephants' Toothpaste, and Worms in Your Tummy held the attention and fascination of children of all ages. Some of the more popular activities this year were chromatography butterflies, ice cream made with liquid nitrogen, and red cabbage pH indicators. Even the vintage vinegar-filled volcanos that erupt when baking soda is added were useful to teach the lessons of chemistry.

NCW is a good time to learn about careers in chemistry as well. The Southern California Section had High School Career Day at Occidental College in Los Angeles. Roughly 200 students--almost all minorities--turned out to hear ACS members talk about their jobs in chemistry, with a particular focus on food chemistry and biotechnology. The Northeast Oklahoma Section took career guidance one step further with its job shadowing program, which gave students a look at what it's like to work as a chemist.

For some chemists, however, their careers allow them to play a role in many things. For Minnesota Section members Ravi Ravichandran and Rick Rossiter, being a chemist also means being a performer. The pair starred in a closed-circuit TV broadcast of chemistry demonstrations and activities for patients at Fairview Children's Hospital. Children were able to follow along with the hosts and conduct their own activities.

The Memphis Section held its first demonstrations in a similar venue, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Known globally for its work on childhood diseases, the institution got its first taste of National Chemistry Week and its food chemistry--and the kids loved it!

And what kid wouldn't love the University of Kansas Section's Popcorn Room? With walls lined with posters on popcorn chemistry, the room and its volunteers taught kids how and why popcorn pops---the release of water. For the older kids, the section had "Kitchen Chemistry Kicked Up a Notch." The host got attendees' attention through the use of a flame bursting through the face of a jack-o-lantern.

The Heart O' Texas Section learned the fire trick long ago. Its "Demos in the Dark" show, during which members of the Sigma Pi Chemistry Club at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor wow the crowd with combustible chemistry feats, has long been a hit. Although bad weather forced the show inside, the change in venue didn't dampen any spirits.

Magic will also get attention, as Mid-Hudson's Stuart Belli, East Tennessee's Al Hazari, and Eastern New York's Bill Town and Marylou Pudiak-Town know. These chemist-magicians dazzled the crowds with their chemistry magic shows.

But is it magic that crushed the Kalamazoo Section's eight 55-gal drums? No, it was chemistry. Section members crushed drums every half hour outside the Kalamazoo Valley Museum to demonstrate the principles of expansion, contraction, and air pressure.

Taking in the fresh air with outdoor festivities were Puerto Rico's four student affiliates chapters. The students banded together to bring chemistry to the public through their chemistry fair at San Juan's Antonia Quiñones Park in Condado, where a few hundred students from elementary, middle, and high schools along with members of the community learned a bit more about science.

San Diego's outdoor Chem Expo in Balboa Park drew in nearly 2,000 visitors, 1,500 of whom were students from 97 different schools in the area. And South Florida's "Family Day at Miami MetroZoo" entertained visitors and residents alike.

Entertainment is great, but an even bigger goal of NCW is influence. According to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, the California Section's "Family Science Night," during which nearly 800 students and their families were entertained and educated on chemistry, hit the mark: "I think we got through to them," says section member Anthony Cody. "One student wrote a thank-you to the American Chemical Society and said it was the most fun night of his life," Cody says. "He's only nine."

The week was a good time for nine-year-olds. Not only was there an abundance of sweet and slimy things to enjoy, but there were also opportunities to tread where nine-year-olds are typically not allowed. Places such as the Oshkosh Filtration Plant (Northeast Wisconsin Section) and the Nebraska Food Processing Center at the University of Nebraska, Kearney (Nebraska Section), opened their doors to visitors of all ages during the week. Many such places, including BP and North Dakota State Laboratories, both of which are in the Red River Valley Section's territory, held tours and open houses.

Many sections held similar endeavors, such as Norwich Section's open house at Perry Browne Elementary School and Illinois-Iowa Section's open house at Augustana College in Rock Island, Ill.

The Southern Indiana Section also held an open house, and it proved to be quite an event. Visitors to Indiana University's chemistry building in Bloomington were treated to demonstrations and hands-on activities given by local organizations and companies, and then they took a building tour that included stops in the Molecular Structure Center, the machine shop, a laser lab, and the glassblowing shop. In the glass shop, manager Don Garvin made each group of students a blown-glass swan. Some of the students traveled more than two hours to enjoy the experience.

Distance is no problem for the Indiana Section, however. Using the Children's Museum of Indianapolis' Distance Link program, which is broadcast to public schools throughout the state, the section presented the movie "Living Chemistry" and Eli Lilly & Co.'s "Chemistry is a Blast" show to students. Eli Lilly and Dow AgroSciences also performed stage demonstrations at the museum, which displayed 5-foot chemical structures of aspirin, sucrose, cholesterol, and caffeine and a 54-foot periodic table drawn on the pavement in front of its entrance.

Periodic tables are common sights during National Chemistry Week. St. Louis Section member Lisa Balbes made a presentation at the St. Louis Science Center using a Web-based table ( http://www.webelements.com ). Designed by Mark Winter, a professor at the University of Sheffield, England, and Royal Society of Chemistry 1998 HE Teaching Award winner, the site gives its visitors a chance to learn more about their favorite elements and to hear the names' pronunciations.

Cupcake periodic tables are also a staple on the NCW menu, but they were particularly relevant with this year's food theme. The Kalamazoo Section's cupcake table, whose edible elements were baked by local high school students, involved roughly 800 cupcakes brought to the Chemistry Day event at the Kalamazoo Valley Museum on Nov. 4.

As centers of learning, museums have also proven to be ideal locations to teach others about chemistry. Capitalizing on this opportunity were, among others, the North Carolina Section, which held events at the Museum of Life & Science in Durham; the Rochester Section, which held an event at the Rochester Museum & Science Center; the Minnesota Section, which had four days of fun hosting tables at the Science Museum of Minnesota; and the Peoria Section in Illinois, which presented its event, "Wizards of Chemistry--Magic In Your Kitchen," at the Lakeview Museum of Arts & Sciences. A television talk show featured three of the experiments prior to the Lakeview event.

The news media are often key to NCW's success. They carry the announcements of events, and sometimes they carry the events themselves: The Erie Section, with the help of a local newspaper, held an NCW newspaper contest. Each day during the week, the paper published kitchen chemistry questions and readers sent in their answers.

Newspapers all across the country ran stories on NCW activities in their local areas, but some publications with larger circulations picked up on the stories. On the airwaves, 916 radio stations and network affiliates aired the ACS audio news release on kitchen chemistry; it was played 3,085 times. Sara Risch, secretary of the Division of Agricultural & Food Chemistry, recorded the release.

Indeed, chemistry was everywhere that November week--and that by official proclamation. With a stroke of his pen, President Bill Clinton declared Nov. 5-11 to be National Chemistry Week across the U.S.

With NCW 2000 now complete, some folks have a new appreciation of chemistry, while others have the gift of a nourishing meal or some much-needed attention. What everyone has, however, is something new to look forward to: National Chemistry Week 2001.

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