JCE Resources for Chemistry and Careers

Much has been written about careers in chemistry and other specialized areas. A cursory Internet search reveals a vast array of Web sites and books dedicated to career profiles, career tests, and more. However, even with this enormous amount of information available, it can be difficult to convey the richness of a particular career to students, or for someone to really understand what someone does day-to-day in his or her job. Take a look at the categorization of the articles in this resource paper. You’ll notice a sea of “informational” and “book review” labels, and a lack of “demonstration” and “experiment”. The articles in this resource paper are excellent background information for educators. But, please consider them as a jumping-off point. How could you go beyond merely sharing information? How could you or a guest speaker effectively demonstrate a career? How might your students briefly experience a career? JCE would love to hear about what you’ve tried.

As has been done with past NCW themes (1), this annotated bibliography collects the best that past issues of JCE have to offer for use with this year’s National Chemistry Week. The American Chemical Society theme for 2007 is “The Many Faces of Chemistry” and focuses on the diversity of chemistry-related careers along with the diversity of people engaged in those careers. Each item has been characterized as an activity, book review, experiment, informational, or Web-based resource; several fit more than one classification. The most recent articles are listed first. An indication of the levels the article may serve are included. Articles that appeared adaptable to other levels, but not designed explicitly for those levels, are labeled “poss. h.s.” “poss. elem.”, and so forth. Since all references are to Journal articles, they appear in abbreviated form, including only year, volume, page.