Chemical Education Today edited by
Erica K. Jacobsen Associate Editor, Precollege Chemistry
Laura E. Slocum
Quilt as Desired
Assistant Editor, Precollege Chemistry
Erica K. Jacobsen and Laura E. Slocum
Quilt as Desired The quilting project was humming along beautifully. The pattern and stitching were coming together according to plan. Then I arrived at the instruction step, which even though only three words long, often strikes fear into the heart of many quilters: “Quilt as desired.” I'm not sure exactly what it is about this step that tends to bring my projects to a dead halt. When piecing a quilt top, either according to a planned pattern, or according to my own design, I'm fine. But when it comes to selecting and overlaying a quilting design on the top, which serves to hold together the three layers of top, batting, and quilt backing, I'm stuck. It may be a fear of ruining the quilt top by layering on a quilting design that does not quite work. It may be that I'm still a beginner, and not aware of the options and how they may visually work with a particular pieced top pattern. A reference that illustrates at least a taste of the possibilities is Quilting Makes the Quilt by Lee Cleland (1). The book has photographs of several identically pieced quilt tops, but each with a different design quilted onto it, to illustrate what a particular top's pattern can look like when overlaid with different quilting designs. The differences can be quite dramatic, with some designs working better than others aesthetically. A reader may be drawn to one design over another based on personal preference. A selected quilting design is a chance to enhance the visual appeal of the top, while stamping the quilt with one's own personal view of design merely with lines of thread. I experimented with the idea myself by sewing two identically pieced baby quilts. In one, I let the pattern of the backing fabric guide me, quilting a flower motif in the middle of each square. The other uses a simple grid pattern. In the end, each has its own flavor. (See Figure 1.) As a teacher introduces a particular chemistry concept in the classroom, they are really following the directions: “Teach as desired.” The Journal can help educators to see some of the possibilities and options they have for a particular topic. Teaching any chemistry topic gives an educator a chance to stamp the topic with one's own personal views and interests. Below, I describe two examples from this issue where people overlaid their own interests onto a particular concept, to give it a flavor that is uniquely their own. Last December, I was intrigued to receive an e-mail message from Ashley Jennings, a junior at Hatboro-Horsham High School in Horsham, PA, describing a 3D computer animation she had developed to help both her fellow Honors Chemistry students and her teacher with the topic of VSEPR structures. The animation has also been posted on YouTube (2), a Web site for watching and sharing original videos. Her initial e-mail message led to the article you see in this issue, “The VSEPR Challenge: A Student's Perspective” (DOI: 10.1021/ed100148e). 460
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Figure 1. Two different overall quilting patterns layered onto identically pieced quilt tops. (A) Quilting design stitching in a flower motif in the middle of each square; (B) quilting design stitching in a simple grid pattern.
She took the topic of valence shell electron repulsion models, which her instructor had demonstrated using toy K'NEX rods and connectors, and blended it with her own interest in art, in particular her knowledge of computer graphics and animation. The result was a tool useful to both teacher and students. I'm also guessing that Ashley will never forget the various VSEPR shapes either! This past winter, I used Davis and Henry's JCE Classroom Activity #97 “The Sweeter Side of Density”(3) during a Christmas-themed children's outreach activity. Children were given green and red solutions, each containing different amounts of sugar. They then layered the solutions, based on the difference in density between the two solutions. The abstract for Angelin and Ramström's “Making a Chemical Rainbow” (DOI: 10.1021/ ed800171f) sounded quite similar at first. However, further investigation showed that they placed their own layer of design on the familiar layered liquid rainbow concept, using a
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Vol. 87 No. 5 May 2010 pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc r 2010 American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc. 10.1021/ed800176d Published on Web 03/19/2010
Chemical Education Today
problem-based-learning approach, with students applying their knowledge of solutions, densities, and solubility to create a six-layer rainbow. Editor-in-chief Norb Pienta's editorial this month (DOI: 10.1021/ed100160c) encourages the chemistry education community to join U.S. President Obama's “Educate to Innovate” campaign. Pienta describes a local physics teacher's development of a science fair to benefit the community, as an example “not [of] an endorsement of science fairs as a pedagogy”, but one example of how an educator linked science, students, and the community. Pienta encourages readers to not only take action in their own classrooms and communities, but to share their ideas in JCE to benefit the wider chemical education community. I encourage you to do the same. What is your design? What is your layer? What can you add on to what has gone before, or layer over the basic concepts of chemistry to provide your own unique offering?
Precollege Chemistry Featured Article
Laura's Take on the Issue There are several articles in this issue that captured my attention, but two of them really jumped off the page. The first was Kimbrough and Jensen's “Using the Melamine Contamination of Foods To Enhance the Chemistry Classroom” (DOI: 10.1021/ed800174h). When I first read the article, which mentions the use of melamine in baby formulas and powdered milk products, I thought about ALL the milk products most of us consume over the years. I also quickly thought about various places where I could incorporate the ideas from this article into not only my Introduction to Biochemistry course, but also my first-year chemistry course. The authors noted, “Incorporating the chemistry of melamine into introductory ...chemistry enables
r 2010 American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.
students to be better informed `chemistry citizens' and provides a real-world context to the solving of organic structural and stoichiometry problems.” Both of these are reasons why I am adding this application to my courses. My students do not seem to mind “big” problems when they have some application to their lives. The second article that caught my attention was the editorin-chief's column, particularly his focus on the upcoming National Lab Day. The science department at my school has already set aside that week to further enhance our hands-on laboratory components in a BIG way and invite the students' parents to come and join us during lab time. We are actually kicking off National Lab Day the Friday before by sharing some chemistry demonstrations during our Grandparents' Day assembly. This is how we are beginning to lay down our next layer for science in our school community.
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5Jennings, A. S. The VSEPR Challenge: A Student's Perspective. J. Chem. Educ. 2010, 87 (DOI: 10.1021/ ed100148e). Literature Cited 1. Cleland, L. Quilting Makes the Quilt; That Patchwork Place: Bothell, WA, 1994. 2. Jennings, A. S. Chemistry VSEPR Theory. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3FCHVlSZc4 (accessed Mar 2010). 3. Davis, M.; Henry, C. The Sweeter Side of Density. J. Chem. Educ. 2008, 85, 1088A–1088B.
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Vol. 87 No. 5 May 2010
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