Information
•
Textbooks
•
Media
•
Resources
The Living Textbook of Nuclear Chemistry: A Peer-Reviewed, Web-Based, Education Resource W. Loveland,* A. Gallant, and C. Joiner Department of Chemistry, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331-4003; *
[email protected] This paper describes a recent development in nuclear chemistry education, The Living Textbook of Nuclear Chemistry (LTNC). What is this Living Textbook? Specifically the LTNC is a Web site, http://livingtextbook.oregonstate.edu/ (accessed Aug 2004). Most questions about the Living Textbook can be answered by examining this Web site. More broadly, the LTNC is an attempt to gather supplemental materials relating to the study and practice of nuclear chemistry. “Supplemental” is the key word here, as the LTNC is neither a stand-alone textbook of nuclear chemistry nor a selfcontained presentation of material to students. Rather, it supplements existing courses and textbooks in nuclear and radiochemistry. As it is a Web site, the content will vary over time, responding to changing needs of the profession and its research agenda. Many factors led us to create the LTNC. The first was the dated nature of the widely used textbooks in nuclear and radiochemistry. Two of the three most commonly used textbooks (1–3) offer dated or incomplete coverage of recent developments. The small size of the field—fewer than 1000 practitioners in the U.S. (4)—and the resulting small market for textbooks in this field restrict the development of upto-date presentations of the subject. While many textbooks for nuclear physics fill some demand for up-to-date teaching materials, many chemical aspects of the field are not covered. A second motivating factor was the need for supplemental, advanced material in nuclear and radiochemistry. Frequently, specialized material that is important for instructors and their students is not covered in standard textbooks. Examples of this material include the recent advances in the chemistry, physics, and synthesis of the heaviest elements; nuclear structure and nuclear dynamics; and the separation and chemistry of the radioelements. Having an easily accessible source of well-presented, authoritative, advanced materials may encourage student inquiry. A Web site is an ideal place to gather such information because of easy access and the ability to use animation, color, audio–video clips, and other forms in presenting material. The latter factor is especially important in meeting the needs of current students accustomed to the use of these techniques in advertising and other aspects of modern life. The use of color and animation is usually not possible in advanced textbooks and yet is readily available at current Web sites on this topic. Modern Web-authoring software1 makes the use of streaming audio–video presentations of material a reality. A final motivating factor was the desire to have the LTNC project serve as a historical archive for a field in which many of the important, defining developments have occurred during the last half-century. A special dimension is added when the students hear and see the discoverers of new phenomena describing their work and the accompanying excitement in their own words.
1670
Journal of Chemical Education
•
It is our goal to make sure that all information in the LTNC had been peer-reviewed for accuracy. Too often, information available on the Web has not been peer-reviewed and the sources of data and conclusions are not known. The participation of the Division of Nuclear Chemistry and Technology (DNCT) of the American Chemical Society (ACS) as a sponsor of the Web site has aided us in obtaining referees and refereed material for use at this site. Contents of The Living Textbook of Nuclear Chemistry The LTNC contains these ten topical sections (chapters): • Audio–video tapes and textual material relating to the history of nuclear chemistry • Links to modern compilations of data of use to the student and practicing professional • Links to modern nuclear and radiochemistry classes whose content might be of interest to practitioners • Selected articles on nuclear and radiochemistry • An ACS audio course on radiochemistry • Selected audio–video presentations, mostly dealing with nuclear safety, used to train radiation workers • Tutorial lectures by prominent nuclear and radiochemists about advanced topics in nuclear and radiochemistry. • Links to National Academy of Science (NAS) monographs on the radiochemistry of the elements • A collection of tested nuclear and radiochemistry lab experiments • Online editions of modern textbooks
The history section relates largely to the discovery of new heavy elements and is focused on work done at Berkeley (5). The piece de resistance of this group is the remembrance of Seaborg by Ghiorso. Ghiorso reminisces about the highlights of Seaborg’s career and Ghiorso’s association with him. The approximately 50-minute video ends with 10–15 minutes of material on the element 118 affair (6), where one can watch Victor Ninov and others describing the successful synthesis of element 118, an event now known (7), to be a case of scientific fraud. The other video clips include short presentations by Seaborg, Ghiorso, Hoffman, Silva, and others on the discovery and first chemistry of several heavy elements. The links to data compilations (8) include the types of data used by students in solving homework problems, along with the nuclear data used each day by practicing nuclear and radiochemists. The current course links allow students to sample the presentations of different topics by leading nuclear chemical educators in the U.S. Students sometimes
Vol. 81 No. 11 November 2004
•
www.JCE.DivCHED.org
Information
find an alternate approach to a subject will be the one that allows them to understand the subject. The selected articles are well-written, refereed discussions by leading nuclear and radiochemists of ionizing radiation, neutron activation analysis and its applications, cosmology, fission, nuclear waste disposal, the Oklo phenomenon, and plutonium. This material was presented at a symposium sponsored by the DNCT (9). The ACS course on radiochemistry is an audio tape presentation with lecture notes (from 1978) by Gregory Choppin and Patricia Baisden. The course materials also include a booklet available in PDF format (300 pages), and approximately 5.5 hours of audio tapes, linked to the text material. This course treats detection and measurement of radioactivity, nuclei and their decay, and the interaction of radiation with matter. The extensive coverage of the practical aspects of handling radioactivity, and preparing and counting samples is ideally suited for training radiochemical technicians. The training videos section involves streaming (or downloadable) audio–video presentations from Indiana University, Argonne National Laboratory, and Oregon State University used for the orientation and training of laboratory personnel who handle radioactivity. While some of the material is site-specific, enough of it is of general interest to merit others’ attention. We are most proud of our section of tutorial lectures on advanced topics. We have synchronized audio–slide presentations of nine recognized authorities in nuclear chemistry giving tutorial lectures on their research specialties. This material is not generally available in printed form, let alone with a spoken narrative. The use of modern presentation programs such as Microsoft PowerPoint or Macromedia Flash allows the incorporation of animation in these presentations. These presentations were given (and recorded) as part of symposia of the DNCT at national ACS meetings. Using this format, we hope to continue to add additional tutorial lectures given at future ACS meetings, so that the content of this section will be self-renewing and up-to-date. The NAS monographs (10) on radiochemistry are authoritative “cookbooks” on the radiochemistry of each element, and include tested procedures for the separation and counting of radioisotopes of that element. Links are provided that allow downloading and printing of these books as PDFs. Online versions of two modern nuclear chemistry textbooks (2, 11) complete the Web site. These textbooks are available in PDF format with color illustrations not available in the print editions; the textbook PDFs are not printable.
•
Textbooks
•
Media
•
Resources
Nuclear Chemistry from the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Committee on Science of the American Chemical Society and the Division of Nuclear Chemistry and Technology of the ACS. The Living Textbook of Nuclear Chemistry operates on Web sites maintained by the American Chemical Society and Oregon State University. Note 1. Examples include Macromedia Web Design Studio 4, Adobe PageMill, Microsoft FrontPage, Allaire HomeSite, etc.
Literature Cited 1. Friedlander, G., Kennedy, J. W., Macias, E. S., Miller, J. M., Nuclear and Radiochemistry, 3rd ed.; Wiley: New York, 1981. 2. Choppin, G. R., Liljenzin, J. O.; Rydberg, J., Radiochemistry and Nuclear Chemistry, 3rd ed., Butterworth: Woburn, MA, 2002. 3. Ehmann, W. D., Vance, D. E., Radiochemistry and Nuclear Methods of Analysis; Wiley: New York, 1991. 4. Kinard, W. F. College of Charleston, Charleston, SC. Personal communication. 5. Hoffman, D. C.; Lee, D. M., J. Chem. Educ. 1999, 76, 331. 6. For an example of media coverage of the element 118 affair, consult this link to National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, Sept. 5, 2002. http://discover.npr.org/features/ feature.jhtml?wfld=1149512 (accessed Aug 2004) 7. Gregorich, K. E.; Ginter, T. N.; Loveland, W.; Peterson, D.; Patin, J. B.; Folden, C. M., III; Hoffman, D. C.; Lee, D. M.; Nitsche, H.; Omtvedt, J. P.; Omtvedt, L. A.; Stavsetra, L.; Sudowe, R.; Wilk, P. A.; Zielinski, P. M.; Aleklett, K. Eur. Phys. J A 2003, 18, 633. 8. These links to data compilations were all accessed Aug 2004: http://www.dayah.com/periodic/ http://www.webelements.com/ http://ie.lbl.gov/education/isotopes.htm http://nucleardata.nuclear.lu.se/nucleardata/toi/ http://www.nndc.bnl.gov/index.jsp http://sutekh.nd.rl.ac.uk/CoN/ http://physics.nist.gov/PhysRefData/contents.html http://t2.lanl.gov/data/astro/molnix96/massd.html http://www.nuclides.net/Applets/radioactive_decay.htm
Summary
http://ie.lbl.gov/systematics.html
The Living Textbook of Nuclear Chemistry functions as an authoritative Web site containing supplemental material for teaching nuclear and radiochemistry. It contains a number of unique features that model an approach to publishing comprehensive, up-to-date, advanced materials for use by students and professionals for other small yet vibrant areas of chemistry. Acknowledgments We gratefully acknowledge financial support for the development and implementation of The Living Textbook of
www.JCE.DivCHED.org
•
9. Baisden, P. A. Chemistry and Materials Science Directorate, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Personal communication. 10. National Academy of Sciences–National Research Council Nuclear Science Series: Monographs on Radiochemistry and Radiochemical Techniques (NAS-NS-3001 through NAS-NS3115). 11. Loveland, W.; Morrissey, D. J.; Seaborg, G. T. Modern Nuclear Chemistry; Wiley: New York, 2004. http:// oregonstate.edu/dept/nchem/textbook/index.html (accessed Aug 2004).
Vol. 81 No. 11 November 2004
•
Journal of Chemical Education
1671
