Chemical Education Today
From Past Issues
The More Things Change… Volume 1, Number 8
Volume 25, Number 10
According to editor Neil Gordon, “the teaching of chemistry is headed toward a real profession. When one reviews what the chemistry teachers have accomplished in one short year, there cannot help being a certain amount of inspiration.” The one short year was measured from the date when it was first suggested that there be a Journal of Chemical Education, and indeed a great deal had been accomplished. In addition to the Journal, Gordon and others were developing an integrated curriculum for high school and college chemistry courses and developing a national network of chemistry teachers. The first periodic table published in JCE appeared in October 1924 in a paper by G. W. Sears of the University of Nevada. It was created in reaction to the pedagogical problems and seeming inconsistencies of the standard (shortform) Mendeleev table that was in common use. Sears’s table is shown below.
In October 1948 a symposium on the use of theoretical principles in chemistry was published. It included papers on electrochemistry (A. W. Davidson), electronic structure (W. F. Kieffer), visualization (A. B. Garrett), redox (C. A. Vanderwerf ), atomic structure (W. E. Morrell), acid-base theory (W. F. Luder), and structural chemistry (J. A. Campbell). Harry H. Sisler introduced the symposium with the question, “Should an attempt be made to incorporate recent theoretical developments into our elementary courses?” Kieffer became editor of this Journal in the mid-50s and spoke at the Journal’s 75th anniversary symposium at this fall’s ACS meeting. Campbell was instrumental in creating the Chem Study high school curriculum of the 60s. His paper included the figure of scale-model van der Waals radii shown below (bottom right), and was sufficiently avant garde in its treatment of acid-base theory that it drew an editorial caution from Norris Rakestraw. Garrett’s paper on visualization included the figure shown below (top left) of the relative sizes of the hydrogen halide molecules and a figure showing atomic and ionic radii in a longform periodic table. The latter was attributed to Campbell, who was a faculty member at Oberlin College, and a similar visualization appeared in a paper by L. E. Steiner describing Oberlin’s chemistry program.
A report from the Division of Chemical Education’s committee on teaching of agricultural chemistry noted that agriculture students need a solid background in chemistry and that more agricultural examples should be provided (along with or in place of the prevailing examples from engineering and chemical manufacturing) in chemistry courses. This issue also contained minutes of the Ithaca meeting of the Division of Chemical Education and the division’s first set of by-laws. A Treasurer–Business Manager had been added to the division’s list of officers because of the finances of the Journal, W. A. Noyes of the University of Illinois was elected chair for 1925. 1194
features such as “Tested Demonstrations”, some of which are still important parts of JCE. A very interesting feature edited by R. C. Brasted was called “Impact” and consisted of interviews with leading scientists. Brasted’s interview of I. M. Kolthoff appears in this issue. As is true of many chemists, the young Kolthoff had a home laboratory, and the interview includes his story of how he rescued a batch of chicken soup his mother had accidentally salted with baking soda by titrating it to pH = 7 with hydrochloric acid. This and other “Impact” papers make very interesting reading today, and I commend them to you. The lead paper in this issue was by John W. Landis, President, Gulf General Atomic Corporation. It described various approaches to fusion power, including Gulf General Atomic’s Doublet concept, which was pictured on the cover. According to Landis’s development program a pilot reactor was to be constructed in the 1980s and a demonstration plant was to be constructed during the 90s for startup in the year 2000. Unfortunately, like many other approaches to fusion power, this one had enough practical difficulties that it has not become a commercial success.
Volume 50, Number 10 Editor W. T. Lippincott used the occasion of the Journal’s 50th anniversary to reaffirm his editorial philosophy. Two major points were that the readers’ interests come first, followed closely by the authors’ interests, and that original research in chemistry or other sciences would not be published but that original research in chemical education would. Lippincott also delineated the problem of insufficient submissions of manuscripts in some areas and an oversupply in others. One solution to the latter problem was
Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 75 No. 10 October 1998 • JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu
