Communication pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc
ConfChem Conference on A Virtual Colloquium to Sustain and Celebrate IYC 2011 Initiatives in Global Chemical Education: Global Stamp Competition Lida Schoen* Education Consultant, Groenburgwal 57, Amsterdam 1011 HS, The Netherlands S Supporting Information *
ABSTRACT: The IUPAC Committee on Chemistry Education organized the Global Stamp Competition to foster a better understanding and appreciation of chemistry as a human and cultural enterprise. Students were asked to design a stamp that highlights the impact of chemistry on their country’s culture and everyday life. The competition was open to students in three age categories (12−14 years, 15−18 years, and undergraduate students) from all subjects, not only chemistry. The stamps were submitted with an explanation (in English) on a Web platform. By the submission deadline, 247 designs were received from 18 different countries. Students from the 15−18 age category uploaded the most stamps, and the competition was most popular in Asia Pacific. A selection of the best designs was on display at the IYC 2011 closing ceremony in Brussels. This communication summarizes one of the invited papers to the ConfChem online conference: A Virtual Colloquium to Sustain and Celebrate IYC 2011 Initiatives in Global Chemical Education, held from May 18 to June 29, 2012 and hosted by the ACS DivCHED Committee on Computers in Chemical Education (CCCE) and the IUPAC Committee on Chemistry Education. KEYWORDS: Continuing Education, Elementary/Middle School Science, First-Year Undergraduate/General, General Public, High School/Introductory Chemistry, Public Understanding/Outreach, Internet/Web-Based Learning, Student-Centered Learning
The IUPAC Committee on Chemistry Education (CCE; Christiane Reiners, Germany, and me, initially planned a more elaborate project) and a number of partners1 organized the Global Stamp Competition for students and undergraduates to highlight chemistry as a cultural enterprise.2 The design of the stamps was required to show the impact of chemistry on a country’s culture and everyday life. The competition was launched in Paris in January during the IYC 2011 opening ceremony at UNESCO Headquarters. The competition was open to students in three age categories (12−14 years, 15−18 years, undergraduate students) from all academic subjects, not just to those studying chemistry, until June 15, 2011.
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RESULTS Students uploaded their designs to a moderated publication platform that allowed peer review. By the deadline, 247 designs from 18 different countries had been submitted (Figure 1). Students from 15−18 age category uploaded most designs and accounted for 78.5% of the entries received. The competition appeared to be most popular with students living in Asia Pacific with 56.7% of the entries being submitted from this region. It was interesting to note that, although the majority of the designs were submitted by individuals, many of those originating from Western Europe were the result of collaboration between groups of students. The stamps were designed either on the computer or hand drawn. Peer review was helpful as students could improve their designs. We received only a few (anonymous) negative or hurting reviews. Designs were judged for their artistic value, © 2013 American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.
Figure 1. Submitted stamps broken down by (top) country3 and (bottom) category.
how well they showed the relationship between chemistry and the national or regional culture, and for the quality of the description. An international jury with Daniel Rabinovich (expert on chemical stamps), Zuriati Zakaria (Institut Kimia Published: October 8, 2013 1554
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Table 1. Winners and Runners-Up in the Stamp Competition Category 12−14 years 15−18 years Undergraduate
Winners Vasilena Vasileva (14) from SOU Hristo Botev, Gorna Malina, Bulgaria Muzhafar Hassan Ismail (17) from Mara Junior Science College Taiping, Malaysia Peter Yousef M. Rubio (18) from Santo Tomas University, Manila, Philippines
Runners-Up Stavrou Maria, Spyrou Chrisia and Stylianou Chrysovalento (Cyprus) Luqman Safwan Che Mohd Fauzi (Malaysia) Kyle Stratford and Max Willinger (USA)
customized stamp with the runners-up design;9 The Netherlands did the same with the winning Dutch design10 (Figure 3).
Malaysia), Rachel Mamlok-Naaman (Israel, Committee on Chemistry Education), Morton Hoffman (American Chemical Society), and Lynn Hogue (American Chemical Society) nominated 56 designs for consideration and selected the following winners and runners-up in the 15−18 age category (Table 1). Because of a generous gift of GlaxoSmithKline, which Christiane Reiners obtained, the winners received $500 and runners-up $250 (for the group to divide). All winners and runners-up received a personal certificate, all nominated students a certificate that mentioned the nomination, and all other participants a certificate of participation. Winners and their designs with explanations were presented in the IUPAC bimonthly news magazine, Chemistry International.4
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OFFICIAL CLOSING CEREMONY IN BRUSSELS AND FOLLOW-UP A selection of the nominated designs was on display in our Global Stamp Competition booth during the IYC closing ceremony in Brussels on December 1, 2011. The booth attracted many delegates, including IUPAC president Prof. Nicole Moreau (Figure 2). Vasilena Vasileva (Bulgaria) Figure 3. Stamps from the competition used in (A) Cyprus, (B) The Netherlands, and (C) Bulgaria.
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RECOMMENDATIONS From organizing former competitions11,12 we learned that students of all ages like global competitions. Many questions were asked about new competitions, where to find and when. The main challenge for the organizers, apart from obtaining funding (IUPAC Committee on Chemistry Education and GlaxoSmithKline), was the difficulty of making students, teachers, and professors aware of this competition in a timely manner. Publishing on different sites (IYC 2011, IUPAC, Science Across the World,13 FactWorld) was not effective. Apparently, students and teachers do not pay attention to these media. Next, interviews and publications in journals of chemical societies and chemistry teachers associations were tried with more effect. But the most successful were personal global contacts. We were told a few teachers and professors turned the competition into class activities. Apart from submissions, it generated a lot of peer review.
Figure 2. Prof. Nicole Moreau, IUPAC President (left), and organizer of the competition Dr. Lida Schoen, CCE (right) in the Global Stamp Competition booth in Brussels.
received her prize from Lida Schoen, on November 8, 2011 during a ceremony in her school,5,6 invited by English teacher Kirilka Stankova, who initiated the competition in the school, thus integrating subjects. Institut Kimia Malaysia awarded an additional prize to the winner Muzhafar Hassan Ismail and runner-up Luqman Safwan Che Mohd Fauzi and honored the students during the annual meeting. Peter Yousef Rubio’s winning design was presented during the Coconut Week Celebration of the Philippine Coconut Authority-Department of Agriculture in Manila, Philippines and he was invited as guest of honor during the Annual Conference of the Philippine Chemical Society. The Bulgarian Postal Services issued Vasilena Vasileva’s prize-winning design as an official stamp (Figure 3)7 and was featured on the Bulgarian television.8 Cyprus issued a
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DISCUSSION Because of limited access to the publication platform after closing down, theme-based cluster analysis was not performed. It would have been interesting to find differences between independent and teacher-guided assignment submissions. With extra work, global curriculum content of interest to the students could have been identified for lesson plans and international exchange projects. This paper was discussed from June 1 to June 7 during the spring 2012 ConfChem online conference: A Virtual 1555
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Colloquium to Sustain and Celebrate IYC 2011 Initiatives in Global Chemical Education. This conference was jointly hosted by the ACS DivCHED Committee on Computers in Chemical Education (CCCE) and the IUPAC Committee on Chemistry. The conferences are open to the public and can be assessed at http://www.ccce.divched.org/spring2012confchem.
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ASSOCIATED CONTENT
* Supporting Information S
Full paper from the ConfChem conference. This material is available via the Internet at http://pubs.acs.org.
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AUTHOR INFORMATION
Corresponding Author
*E-mail:
[email protected]. Notes
The author declares no competing financial interest.
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REFERENCES
(1) European Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Education Network, GlaxoSmithKline, Institut Kimia Malaysia, American Chemical Society. (2) Chemistry as a Cultural Enterprise (CCE), project idea for the International Year of Chemistry 2011: http://www.chemistry2011. org/participate/activities/show?id=110 (accessed Aug 2013). (3) Countries with 1 or 2 submissions: Bulgaria, Colombia, Cyprus, France, India, Indonesia, Lithuania, Puerto Rico, Ukraine. (4) The Global Stamp Competition, Chem. Int. 2011, 33 (6), 26−27. http://www.iupac.org/publications/ci/2011/3306/8_stamp_ competition.html (accessed Aug 2013) (5) Report of the ceremony in Gorna Malina: http://www.factworld. info/bulgaria/IYC_Stamp_11/index.htm (accessed Aug 2013) (6) News item (in Bulgarian) on Bulgarian television: http://www. youtube.com/watch?v=3yU-VPSH1gI&feature=channel_video_title (accessed Aug 2013) (7) Schoen, L.; Rabinovich, D. IYC 2011 and the Global Stamp Competition: the Bulgarian Winner. Philat. Chim. Phys. 2012, 34 (4), 174−175. (8) News item on Bulgarian television: http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=kvE9tqITZ5g&feature=youtu.be (accessed Aug 2013) (9) van Albada, G. A. IYC 2011 Once Again: Cyprus Personalized Stamp. Philat. Chim. Phys. 2012, 34 (3), 124−127. (10) van Albada, G. A. Chemistry and the Sunflowers of Vincent van Gogh. Philat. Chim. Phys. 2012, 34 (2), 80−81. (11) Schoen, Lida. “It’s A Chemical World!”The Overwhelming Success of A Poster Competition. Chem. Int. 2003, 25 (6), 4−7. http://www.iupac.org/publications/ci/2003/2506/1_schoen.html (accessed Aug 2013) (12) Schoen, Lida. Chemistry According to Kids. Chem. Int. 2007, 29 (1), 4−7. http://www.iupac.org/publications/ci/2007/2901/1_ schoen.html (accessed July 2013) (13) Science Across the World (SAW) exchange program: http:// www.scienceacross.org (accessed July 2013)
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