COAL Energy, a word which a t one time only conjured up for chemists visions of abstruse thermodvnamic eonations with lots of A's in them, has now taken on a complex set of connotations with political and even moral overtones. The issue of nonrenewable energy sources and their alternatives has, in fact. become the issue of the decade. and in the eves of manv aprohlem which must be solved befdre many nth& problems, such as world peace, hunger, and overpopulation, can he dealt with adequately. Chemists and their students are both part of the citizenry which is concerned with this problem and part of the community of scientists which can offer concrete input into its solution. As a result, chemistry teachers are looking for more energy-related materials for their classrooms to meet this increasing interest on the part of their students. Two articles in this issue take a new look at an old, familiar source of energy whose potential is being reassessed-coal and peat, the "other" fossil fuels. In their article "Coal Analysis, Characterization and Petroeraohv." . " . Petrakis and G r a n d-r (D. . 689) review the properties of coal and the systems of nomenclature in a way that will be useful to chemists who are considerine research projects on coal as well as to those who may wish 6incorporate the chemistry of coal into their classroom presentations. Morita (p. 695) describes the chemistry of an often overlooked fossil fuel-peat. He points out that although its potential has been largely ignored, the US. peat reserves alone are eauivalent to 240 billion hbl of oil-lareer than the reserves of natural gas, crude oil, anthracite coal, lignite or oil shale. He eoes on to discuss the comnosition and abundance of peat a& the role that chemist& can play in its utilization.
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NEW APPROACHES TO EDUCATION The changing student background and attitudes, the changing values in our society, the changing theories of learning, and the changing content of the discipline of chemistry itself all exert forces upon the chemistry teacher who equilibrates, in the spirit of LeChatelier's Princiole, hv in turn making rhanges in the rontent, sfrurture, a;ld a& proach of thc.ir courws. Sevwd articles in this issue d~:scriht. new approaches 118 teaching that were in responsr to unt. or more ul'these external t'orres. Redden and Petriello (p. 712, describe their "(iuided Desixn r\tmn~achto l)e\,eloumental Science" which helps entering stuients who have dasic difficulties with conceptualization, reasoning, and problem solving develop these skills so they can handle the basic chemistry course. The students are lead through a series of decision making steps for a hypothetical problem that strengthens their reasoning skills. Cooperative education programs, while not a new concept, are gaining in popularity as schools look for ways to better prepare their students for the jobs they will have in the "real" world. This month's feature on Cooperatiue Education (p. 718) contains a description of the involvement and attitudes of three major companies in various co-op programs. Two more articles deal with responses to more specific stimuli. Coben (p. 723) describes a program for "Exploring Chemistrv for Junior Hieh Students" that was develoned when his initial program for primary students was greeted with enthusiasm and a desire bv the students for more advanced work. Further along the spectrum of chemical education, Barrow (p. 697) has instituted a series of "ComputerBased Studies for Physical Chemistry" which "help students master quantitative aspects of chemistry without these aspects being hidden by arithmetic struggles."
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684 1 Journal of Chemical Education
While educational systems in other countries are not necessarily parallel to those in the US, many of the problems faced by educators are the same, and teachers can profit by learning how others are trying to solve them. Hudson (p. 715) rives teachers such an oooortunitv in his article describine .. "Some Recent Innovations in the Teaching of Chemistry in the United Kingdom."
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ORGANIC CHEMISTRY A variety of articles in this issue touch on aspects of organic chemistry-particularly those with real-life applications. H a r t and Sasaoka (p. 685) point out that many organic chemistry texts leave the false impression that enols are difficult or impossible to prepare independent of their heto forms. They dispel this myth by reviewing the wide range of possible preparations of stable enols. Much of the discussion of carcinogens in the popular press centers around the cancer-inducing properties of "artificial" compounds with the implication that natural materials are not carcinogenic. Weisburger (p. 724) in this month's Chem I Supplement "Carcinogens in Nature" points out that this is far from the actual case and presents the chemistry of a wide variety of cancer-inducing agents present in the environment. Proovlene is the second most imnortant source of oreanic chem& used in modern industrial processes and ~ i & o f f reviews its chemistrv in the Real World of Industrial Chemistry. Two experiments on organic chemistry provide the laboratory instructor with new materials for their classes. Rothenberger, Krasnoff, and Rollins (p. 741) present the "Conversion of (+)-Limonene to (-)-Carvone" which has application to the utilization of orange peels which are a hyorodnct of oranee-iuice oroduction. Jurch. Johnston. Perrv ;and Drtty In "The ~ v n i h e s and ~ s I'ruton N\1H spec;rum
