edited by
MARCIA C. BONNEAU
the traJinq post
Box 203 DeRuyter, NY 13052
The Mole Buck Marcia C. Bonneau P. 0. Box 203 DeRuyter, NY 13052 Did you ever have a problem trying to reward your students with something that didn't take money out of your poeket? I like to reward my students, but I fmd that popcorn, pizza, soda, and candy can add up to a considerable "piece of change" over a period of a year. The "mole buck" is a form of chemical currency and one way to motivate and reward students for perfect test scores, asking an ingenious question during class, or best performance of a cooperative learning group for a special event or activity. The criteria for earning a mole buck and its value has to be specificso that students are motivated to earn them. At the end of each marking period, the students can =cash in" their mole bucks for bonus points on their homework average. Five mole bucks is approximately equivalent to one homework paper. The diagram below shows a front and back of the "mole buck" used in my classes. It was designed by David J. Newton and printed on green paper in a print shop to prevent counterfeiting. The "mole buck" is not commercially available but could be designed easily with a computer graphics program. Acknowledgment I would like to thank David J. Newton, Science Department Chairman, Cortland J r . S r . High School, Cortland, New York, for giving us written permission to use his original design of the "mole buck."
286
Journal of Chemical Education
Tie-Dyeing-The Art of Chemistry Marcia C. Bonneau P. 0.Box 203 DeRuyter, NY 13052 The Education Division of the American Chemical Society used to publish ChemComments, which contained interesting ideas developed by ChemCom teachers to enrich the "ChemCom-Chemistry in the Community" course. In the November 1989 issue, V. Weber and F. Mittleman described how they used tie-dyeing as a lab at the end of Unit
