Chemical Education Today
Especially for High School Teachers
by Erica K. Jacobsen
Playing Matchmaker
Photo by Charles Henry
If you haven’t visited it before, http://chemistry.com (acSecondary School Featured Articles cessed Jun 2008) probably isn’t quite what you think. The Web site does focus on chemistry—of the matchmaking kind. The ◭ JCE Classroom Activity #97. The Sweeter Side of Density by Michael David and Charles Henry, p 1088A. online dating service uses an algorithm created by Helen E. Fisher, an anthropologist who has studied the neural chemistry ◭ The EPA Schools Chemical Cleanout Campaign (SC3) and How You Can Help by Russell W. Phifer and Marta of people in love (1). Users anGmurczyk, p 1026. swer a few hundred questions Learning with Sweets to form a “personality profile”, which is then used to match them to users with a similar Society, and educators to help K–12 schools manage Candy samples used “chemistry”. their chemical stores and to safely dispose of any unin a statistical data analysis activity (left). Did you know that there necessary chemicals. Please find out how you can help are matchmakers on the JCE with this important “Schools Chemical Cleanout staff as well? They may not reCampaign” (SC3). alize it themselves, but the ediLaura’s Take on the Issue tors that plan and lay out the Journal are experts at matchIt is August already, but it just can’t be really! ing up articles with a similar School starts soon for many of us, including me. I will Layered sugar solutions chemistry (literally) in every be finalizing my first month of lesson plans while atdyed with fluorescein issue. As articles accepted for tending the Biennial Conference on Chemical Educaand Rhodamine B publication progress through tion at the end of July. (right). the system, each is tentatively Since 1998, I always start the first day of class slotted into a particular issue. collecting data to help teach my students how to make Matches are made between data tables, analyze both individual and class data, related articles if possible, and and review their data and procedure for errors. This you’ll commonly find them year I am going to use ideas that Canaes, Brancalion, juxtaposed in an issue. So it’s no accident that you’ll find a colRossi, and Rath (p 1083) describe in their article “Using Candy lection of ideas that favor the sweet tooth this month. After Samples To Learn about Sampling Techniques and Statistical JCE Classroom Activity #97 “The Sweeter Side of Density” Data Evaluation”. (p 1088A) was scheduled for the August issue, other related Because I have smaller class sizes and therefore smaller articles popped up. Two of them are of special interest to high data sets, I will not go into mean-based statistical analysis as the school teachers. You’ll find them on the pages flanking the authors do. My students use median-based statistical analysis Activity sheet. techniques, line plots, and box plots throughout the year on In the Activity, students first measure the density of various all quantitative labs. Students have commented that statistical sugar solutions. But then Davis and Henry give this common analysis was challenging at first, but that they found it rewarding density lab procedure a twist—students dye the solutions and as they gained a better understanding of it with practice. Ideas are challenged to devise a method to combine these miscible proposed by Canaes, et al. will give my students the opportunity solutions to make a multi-colored, layered heterogeneous mixto further explore data acquisition and analysis and also reward ture. After a successful layering, they take it a few steps further them with a bit of a treat at the end of the activity—some by predicting the density and color that will result if they then M&M’s to take with them, of course, never to eat in the lab! mix the layers. While reading the preview copy of this issue, I Literature Cited was pleased to discover the matchmaking that JCE editors did between the Activity and the article that follows. Peterson’s 1. Tierney, J. Findings: Hitting It Off, Thanks to Algorithms of article “Measuring the Density of a Sugar Solution: A General Love. The New York Times, Jan 29, 2008. http://www.nytimes. Chemistry Experiment Using a Student-Prepared Unknown” com/2008/01/29/science/29tier.html (accessed Jun 2008). (p 1089) is a great extension for students that have tried the Classroom Activity. See the pointer on p 1090 for more details. Supporting JCE Online Material Laura describes a third sugary article in her Take below. http://www.jce.divched.org/Journal/Issues/2008/Aug/abs1021.html You won’t find sugar in Phifer and Gmurczyk’s article (p Full text (HTML and PDF) with links to cited URLs 1026) . Instead they describe more matchmaking—between the Blogged at http://expertvoices.nsdl.org/chemeddl/ U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the American Chemical
© Division of Chemical Education • www.JCE.DivCHED.org • Vol. 85 No. 8 August 2008 • Journal of Chemical Education
1021
