Over the past few years, consumers have been looking for products containing natural rather than synthetic food dyes.^1,2 In response to this trend McCormick & Company, Inc. has recently released Color from Nature food colors, which are advertised as “colors made from plants, vegetables, and seeds.”³ A box of Color from Nature contains three packets of powdered dyes: Sky Blue, Berry (red), and Sunflower (yellow). I recently purchased a box from a local store and spent some time investigating and experimenting with these dyes. Wow! These natural food dyes provide avenues for a whole host of interesting, yet easy-to-perform chemistry experiments and demonstrations! I will be sharing many of these explorations with you in a three part series. In this post (Part 1) I’ll be sharing a bit about the chemistry of the Sky Blue food color, along with some experiments and demonstrations that are possible with this food color.

Spirulina (a blue-green algae) is listed in the ingredients for the Sky Blue dye. Spirulina contain phycocyanin, a protein found in plants. This water-soluble protein does a good job of absorbing wavelengths of light in regions that chlorophyll does not. This helps plants to absorb extra energy from sunlight. Phycocyanin has a beautiful, deep blue color that primarily arises from the pigment phycocyanobilin (Figure 1).

phycocyanobilin

Figure 1: structure of phycocyanobilin, a pigment in phycocyanin that is responsible for the blue color in spirulina. The pigment is attached to the phycocyanin protein via a cysteine residue.

As an added bonus, phycocyanobilin displays an intense red fluorescence that can be excited with a flashlight and easily be observed under room lights! Check out some fluorescence experiments you can do with Sky Blue dye in the video below:

The phycocyanobilin moiety is attached to the phycocyanin protein through a cysteine amino acid. As you can see in the video above, metal ions bind to the phycocyanobilin moiety (Figure 2), and this quenches the fluorescence of the protein.⁴ I observed this to work using both Ag⁺ and Cu²⁺ ions (see video above for tests using Cu²⁺).

tentative structure of copper (II) bound to phycocyanobilin

Figure 2: Possible interaction between Cu²⁺ and phycocyanobilin attached to protein

What is interesting about this protein is that when it is denatured, the blue color diminishes and in some cases completely disappears. Likewise, the ability of the protein to fluorescence also decreases when it is denatured. Thus, the use of McCormick’s Sky Blue food colorant provides simple ways to demonstrate protein denaturation that involve a drastic color change from blue to colorless! You can see some of explorations of denaturing phycocyanin in the video below.

If equipment is available to do so, it is very easy to do some simple spectroscopic experiments with Sky Blue dye. The absorption spectrum of Sky Blue dye dissolved in water is displayed in Figure 3. Consistent with the blue color of the solution, the absorption spectrum peaks in the orange region. The spectrum observed is consistent with previously reported absorption spectrum of phycocyanin in the dye.⁵ Thus, it is likely that this protein is responsible for the blue color observed in Sky Blue dye. 

absorption spectrum of McCormick Sky Blue Dye in water

Figure 3: Absorption spectrum of McCormick Sky Blue dye dissolved in water.

By shining a violet laser pointer at a solution of Sky Blue dye, I was able to acquire the emission spectrum of the dye (Figure 4). The spectrum is clearly consistent with the red color of fluorescence observed. Once again, the structure of the emission spectrum was consistent with previously reported fluorescence spectra of phycocyanin,⁶ further confirming the presence of this protein in Sky Blue dye.

Emission spectrum of McCormick's Sky Blue dye dissolved in water, exited by a 405 nm laser pointer

Figure 4: Emission spectrum of Sky Blue dye in water excited with a laser pointer (405 nm). 

As you can see, there are a remarkable number of simple experiments that can be done with the Sky Blue dye found in McCormick’s Color Nature food colors. Be sure to comment if you try out any of these experiments - or invent any of your own to do - with this fascinating dye. In about a month, be looking for part 2 of this series in which the chemistry of the Berry dye will be explored.

Happy experimenting!

1. http://cen.acs.org/articles/92/i6/New-Naturals.html

2. http://cen.acs.org/articles/92/i6/Choices-Natural-Colors.html

3. http://ir.mccormick.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=65454&p=RssLanding&cat=news&id=2179623 

4. Gelagutashvili, E.; American Journal of Biomedical and Life Sciences2013; 1, 12-16.

5. Taylor, A. T. S.; Feller, S. E. J. Chem. Educ.2002, 79, 1467 – 1470.

6. Suresh, M.; Mishra, S. K.; Mishra, S.; Das, A. Chem. Commun., 2009, 2496–2498

What are we doing to help kids achieve?

     Card sorts are a great way to achieve a number of classroom objectives. They can be used as a review activity or they can be done during the middle of a lesson as a type of formative assessment. Sorts can encourage students to work with other students or can even be used as a type of exit ticket. I decided to use the strategy about two thirds of the way through a unit on covalent and ionic compounds and lewis structures. I knew there were items we did not cover in the sort but I was curious to see how they would approach these unknown topics. Typically, the sort involve words, diagrams, pictures, properties and phrases on a topic that are easy to put in a document, print, cut up and put in envelopes for groups. Students are instructed to place them in the column "Ionic", "Covalent", or "Both". I decided to try something different. I gave the students about 15 minutes and then told them to make a fourth group with an asteric that was "I don't know".  

     There were six groups and I was able to have discussions with most of the groups that I wish could have lasted longer. The sort provided me with a chance to help clear up some minor misconceptions. More important was the asterick, "I don't know" group. It clearly provided me with topics for future lesson plans. It also was helpful to see that many groups had the same questions. If I could do it again I would have used it at the beginning of the lesson and then at the end.  I also would have had students use their cell phones to take pictures of the "before" and "after" and then discuss the differences (maybe next year.....).

     Assessments, especially formative assessments, do not always have to be electronic or recorded. Some of the best often are not. The bad news about these assessments is that as a teacher I have to go where the students misunderstandings and questions lead us as a class. This often requires a"Plan B" and is sometimes difficult for me, who, as a person and a teacher, is under the illusion that sometimes I am in control of some things. It leads to a "messy" place...but this is where the challenges and fun often get started.

     Have you ever had to take a "U-turn" in your teaching....or had to go to a "Plan B"? What was that like? Would you do it again? Do you have a great formative assessment you would like to share? Let's start a convesation...

Every year, I have asked my AP students to determine the reaction order of both crystal violet (CrV) and sodium hydroxide (NaOH) using spectrometers. The lab I gave them is a modification of the kinetics lab from Pasco’s Advanced Chemistry Through Inquiry (I wrote about this manual here) and Flinn’s classic write-up. My students found the reaction order of crystal violet to be 0,1, and 2. They found the same with sodium hydroxide. Then I have had to tell them that the reaction order of each is actually 1. Explaining the error analysis is difficult for my students and it has been difficult for me to grade. Have you been there, too?

ts_pick_2-17.gif

I recently stumbled upon this article and it is a super handy resource for kinetics labs (and a nice review of Analytical courses from my college days).

A few potential culprits:

1. Spectrometer Limitations - deemed to have the most significant effect on data - Remember that time in Analytical Chemistry when you discussed target absorbances to prevent deviations from the linearity we see in Beer’s Law? Right. Absorbances of CrV should be between about 0.1 to 0.7. So, suppose you are like me and don’t make solutions particularly carefully because you don’t care what the numbers are. You just care what your students can do with the numbers. This is the “fake it” method of making the CrV solution- add a drop or two of concentrated CrV and call it a day. What I should do as an addendum to the “fake it” method of solution preparation is to double check the absorbance and adjust accordingly. (I now have to apologize for "faking it" to my past students.)

2. Signal Processing - When does a student know when to stop collecting data? The authors tested a few different scenarios - but stopping at a common absorbance seems to be the best option. Additionally, authors discuss the benefits of LoggerPro vs Excel… but I have unfair bias towards Excel so I choose to ignore it (my husband is an engineer...enough said).

3. Interference from Particulates - Have you ever noticed (and ignored) that the final solution is a bit “milky-white” and not perfectly clear? While not deemed to be a major culprit by the authors, it might be a “tangible” source of error to discuss with your students.

The authors conclude with some practical guidelines aligned with the aforementioned culprits. All in all, in my completely biased opinion, this article satiates my desire for an efficient, practical, immediately-applicable article. It’s worth a full read - and if your students are ready, it might be valuable for them to read it too.

Thank you to the authors for publishing this - I hope I represented it well. I hope to see more like this in the future!

PS - If you don’t have access to colorimeters/spectrometers, check out Tom’s post on how to use smartphones as an absorption spectrophotometer.

Partnership Advances Sustainable Science and Green Chemistry Education K-20 

to Build a 21st Century Skilled WorkforceCapable of Green Technological Innovation 

Wilmington, MA—Beyond Benign, a national nonprofit, established in 2007 to equip educators, scientists, and citizens with the tools to teach and practice green chemistry to achieve a sustainable society, just announced a strategic partnership with Flinn Scientific.

Beyond Benign and Flinn Scientific will co-develop products for use in high school chemistry and introductory college chemistry courses that provide science educators with green chemistry learning solutions.

Known as the science of creating safe, energy efficient and less toxic processes and products, green chemistry supports an important sustainability narrative that society may incorporate into action to benefit human health and the environment. With the global market for green chemistry projected in a Pike Research study to grow from 11 billion in 2015 to nearly 100 billion by 2020, there is a pressing need to advance this work as quickly as possible.

“Flinn Scientific is a well-respected and service driven company with a deep history in science education. Through this partnership, we anticipate bringing much needed green chemistry learning resources to an expansive audience of science educators that we may not otherwise reach. This is important because our educational pipelines are mostly void of sustainable science curriculum applied to chemistry and materials science. Green chemistry provides the opportunity to green the student pipeline from K through 20, giving students a grounding in the principles of and applications of chemistry for solving real-world problems. We couldn’t be happier about the collaboration.” said Amy Cannon, Executive Director Beyond Benign.

“Flinn is also extremely excited about our partnership with Beyond Benign. They are experts in the fields of green chemistry and green chemistry education. We look forward to working with Beyond Benign to provide high quality, engaging lab activities to support these growing areas of science education.” said Mike Lavelle, Chief Executive Officer, Flinn Scientific.

The first four labs developed by Beyond Benign and Flinn include:

• Design and Function-Blackberry Solar Cell: Use fruit to build a dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC) and measure its electrical characteristics. This experiment, developed will bring chemistry from the abstract into students' everyday world. Concepts: solar cells, alternative energy, electrochemistry and nanotechnology.
• Ash Water Titration: Introduce acid-base titrations in a very unique way. This green chemistry version of a strong acid-strong base titration uses wood ash, a renewable source of base, instead of NaOH. Concepts: acids and bases, titration, catalysis, sustainability and indicators.
• Road Deicers: Learn a quick way to assess the relative toxicities of chemicals commonly found in road deicers. This lab has students examine the effects of aqueous solutions of sodium chloride, magnesium chloride and calcium chloride. Concepts: serial dilution, assays, ecotoxicity, environmental science.
• Making a Household Surface Cleaner: Convert a polylactic acid plastic cup into a household surface cleaner with chemistry while learning about Green Chemistry and polymer chemistry! Concepts: polymers, renewable resources, acids and bases and hydrolysis. 

More information at Flinn Scientific: https://goo.gl/qct3vw

Teacher observations of green chemistry in their classrooms

“The students thought it was so cool that they could use blackberries to make a solar cell. I know that they will look for things in their lives to reduce impact on Earth’s environment.” Connie, Middle School Teacher.

“The students were impressed with the ability to rearrange the atoms into something completely different. It showed a practical application of chemistry, and how the knowledge of chemistry might lead to new technologies.” Laurie, High School Chemistry Teacher.

About Beyond Benign

Co-founded by Dr. John Warner and Dr. Amy Cannon in 2007 as a 501c3 nonprofit, Beyond Benign develops and disseminates educational content that teaches green chemistry innovation and empower educators and students to learn how chemistry is central to innovating sustainable solutions. Beyond Benign’s programs support an educational continuum from K-12 to higher education to industry. The organization works directly with educators and a network of strategic partners focused on science education, sustainability, innovation and initiatives supporting human and environmental health.

About Flinn Scientific

Flinn Scientific supports science educators in opening young minds to the challenges and joys of scientific discovery. Flinn understands that science is a primary source of America’s unparalleled productivity, quality of life, and technological leadership. Through their unsurpassed customer service, they provide the science community with the very best education supplies, safety information, instructional materials and programs to facilitate their vital work. Flinn’s respect for and loyalty to the science community is central to everything they do and their relationship with them is always their first priority. 

As a science teacher, few things beat a high-quality scientific explanation from a student. However, the frequency of such explanations often seems far and few between. Yet year after year, I grade hundreds of lab reports and short answer questions only to consistently feel like I’m sitting at a slot machine experiencing a bunch of “near misses”, several “not-even-close calls”, and just a few “jackpots”. So how can we, as teachers, develop our students’ ability to consistently create better scientific explanations and arguments?

For me, the first step toward teaching my students how to critically think about how they structured an argument or explanation was to implement the Claim, Evidence, Reasoning (CER) framework. While the premise behind CER isn’t anything new to the way science teachers already think, it provides an entirely different approach toward how students connect their experiences and previously learned content into something that is much more reflective of being scientifically literate. Though you may have already guessed from the name itself, applying the CER framework to an explanation or argument goes something like this¹.

Claim: A statement of a student’s understanding about a phenomenon or about the results of an investigation

• A one-sentence answer to the question you investigated
• It answers, what can you conclude?
• It should not start with yes or no.
• It should describe the relationship between dependent and independent variables.

Evidence: Scientific data used to support the claim

Evidence must be:

• Sufficient—Use enough evidence to support the claim.
• Appropriate—Use data that support your claim. Leave out information that doesn’t support the claim.
• Qualitative, Quantitative, or a combination of both.

Reasoning: Ties together the claim and the evidence

• Shows how or why the data count as evidence to support the claim.
• Provides the justification for why this evidence is important to this claim.
• Includes one or more scientific principles that are important to the claim and evidence.

A more thorough summary of the CER framework can be seen below in a nice 7-minute video created by Paul Anderson of Bozeman Science².

You can also read more about the CER framework from Activate Learning. I encourage you to download their CER poster for your classroom.

REFLECTING ON MY OWN EXPERIENCE WITH USING CLAIMS, EVIDENCE AND REASONING

Though you will experience your own journey upon implementation, I wanted to offer a few of my own thoughts and experiences that answer some of the primary questions I had before starting to interweave this framework into my curriculum.

#1 - How do I introduce this to my students?

By the time students reach us in their late high school or early college career, they would have already had 2-3 years of science classes. While you can be reasonably certain that they had been exposed to writing conclusions, or providing short answer explanations to conceptual questions, it’s likely that they had never been explicitly taught the merits of a quality explanation or given intentional practice to work on this skill. Because of this, I recommend introducing the CER framework in a non-scientific context so that students can more easily pick up on the anatomy of a good explanation with the intention that they will eventually be able to transfer these new thinking patterns to a scientific context later. Though there are hundreds of fun ways to do this, here is one way I have introduced CER the past couple years. Watch the video and take a look!

I discovered this commercial while reading Trevor Register's blog post about his CER implementation experience. The little girl in the video believes her dad is an alien and provides multiple pieces of evidence as to why she believes this to be true. Not only is it cute and humorous, but everything she mentions inadvertently provides an awesome opportunity for students to do three things that are fundamentally important when introducing CER.

• Examine each piece of evidence mentioned and determine if it supports the claim or not.
• Upon examining the evidence, students have an opportunity to critically think about why each piece of evidence justifies her claim. In other words, why would “speaking a weird language” or “drinking green stuff” justify the claim that her dad is an alien? That part is pretty fun to talk about with students.
• It gives them an opportunity to hear an inaccurate explanation that sounds like an accurate one. No matter how adorable the little girl is, we can safely agree that her lack of experience on this Earth has allowed her to make connections between her evidence and claim that simply are not true. To the girl, her argument sounds completely valid. But to the rest of us, we are able to quickly discount each piece of evidence provided simply because we have more experience and knowledge than the little girl does. Though students may laugh for the moment and reminisce about how fun it was to be little, the humorous thing is that many of them will actually end up doing the same thing this little girls did early on with their evidence for chemistry explanations—to which I am quickly able to discount!

I will typically ask for students to construct their own CER first and then get into small groups to discuss the merits and any potential holes in each argument. It takes a bit more facilitation by me to get them to realize the point of inaccurate reasoning beyond the simple example of the little girl but students quickly pick up on the message I am trying to get across. The process is fun and, most importantly, meaningful. It truly does provide an easy way to introduce a more complex way of thinking about how we explain things in science.

As students start to gradually improve their CER skills, teachers should work in relatively easy science examples like Francesco Redi’s famous investigation of spontaneous generation. My own use of this example can be found in the supporting information at the bottom of this post.

#2 - Is this only for lab reports or can I use this for homework, quizzes, tests, presentations, etc. too?

The answer to this can be whatever you want it to be. During my 1^st year of implementation, I only used CER in the lab setting. I regret that decision because the nature of our content provides opportunities for students to practice and reflect on their scientific explanations pretty much daily. Adhering only to the lab setting may allow students to think that somehow their explanations of findings in the lab have a fundamentally different structure than the answers I ask them to provide on an assessment. This year, for the first time, I have started to incorporate CER into my quizzes, tests, labs, and homework.

#3 - What are some chemistry examples of student work?

Here are a few that I grabbed from a variety of activities we have done throughout the year.

Example A - Identifying unknown ions from data:

cer1.png

Several more good/bad student examples from this lab can be found in the supporting information at the bottom of this post.

Example B - Error analysis in stoichiometry precipitate lab:

Claim: One source of error that affected our percent yield was our filter not being closed enough when in the funnel.

Evidence: The water coming out of the filter was not 100% clear and had some cloudiness to it.

Reasoning: If the water was not clear that meant that some of the precipitate was flowing out in the water and went down the drain and didn't make it into the final mass of the solid Pb(OH)₂.

---

Example C - Determining the mathematical relationship between molarity, moles of solvent, and volume of solution:

cer2.png

Example D - Investigating the effect of excercise on CO₂ production in the body:

Example E - An example of "inappropriate reasoning" from a stoichiometry lab:

cer4.png

#4 - How do I grade CER assignments?

The most efficient and accurate method I can suggest is to create a uniform rubric that will be used for every CER explanation. Though the explanations will differ based on content, the general structure to them will always be the same. You can find CER grading rubrics on the internet but it is not difficult to create your own once you understand what each piece of the framework looks like when done properly. Here is a relatively simple one that I have been using throughout the year.

#5 - How do I convince my colleagues to try this with me?

Though we may have disagreements on classroom policies, grading, or even educational philosophy, you can be fairly confident that all of your science colleagues will at least agree on their answers to the following question:

Do you want your students to become better at constructing evidence-based explanations and arguments?

If the answer to this is yes and you have a potential framework to offer that can accomplish such a task, aligns with what the NGSS standards advocate for, and already has enough of a foundation in the scientific education community to be taken seriously, then it will leave them with little room to comfortably say no. If time is the immediate obstacle, then you will find a way to rethink how you spend time currently and make the appropriate modifications.

I am proud and thankful to be part of a chemistry department that was willing to accept the integration of CER. Doing so has allowed us to share, compare, and reflect on student work in ways that we rarely would have ever done in the past. If you decide to do this as a team of teachers, I strongly encourage you to make sure that everyone is on the same page about what CER is, what it looks like, and even how you all plan to grade it.

Honestly, it took us months before we realized that maybe it would be a good idea to do something like individually grade a student’s CER example to compare grading and discuss our reasoning. Doing a simple exercise like this quickly made us quickly realize that we were not all on the same page about what we defined as “high quality”. This exercise helped us to constructively argue and become more aligned with each other.

Even if you are just the lone wolf using CER, at least you can be confident that you are intentionally trying to make a difference in building a skill that will help students well beyond their academic career even if it is outside of the scientific context.

#6 - How much time does this take to produce meaningful results?

I can honestly say that consistently and effectively implementing this was (and still is) a process that simply takes time. It is not something subtle like introducing daily warm up questions, exit slips, or new ways of giving formative assessments. It really is a classroom cultural shift with respect to how students interact with their thinking and, because of that, it takes time. The time it takes to produce the results you want largely depends upon your commitment to providing frequent exposure, giving feedback, offering “re-dos”, and consistently communicating the characteristics of a quality scientific explanation.

Final Thoughts

Though I have only been using the CER framework for the past 2 years, it has caused me to completely rethink the expectations I have for lab conclusions, short answer explanations, and argument building. This approach has adhered to our classroom culture enough that it's even gotten to the point where my own students find ways to vindictively use the framework against me when trying make the case for the Dallas Cowboys being the best team in the NFL or whether they should been given a test next Friday! As far as I'm concerned, the more scenarios I can get them to say "what evidence do you have for this?" then I am helping build a skill that will act as a useful filter for the truth in a world of constant information exposure. I am glad I was introduced to CER and I continue to look for better ways to implement it. If this sounds like something you are interested in, I recommend just trying it out for a while and see the kind of results you get from your students. I have found that more of my students are now writing high-quality scientific explanations. That is an area I have wanted to see improvement in since I began teaching!  Feel free to share any experiences you have had with CER or anything related to evidence-based explanations.

References:

¹"Claim Evidence Reasoning CER | Activate Learning — Activate ...."http://www.activatelearning.com/claim-evidence-reasoning/. Accessed 10 Feb. 2017.

²"CER - Claim Evidence Reasoning - YouTube." 9 Jan. 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KKsLuRPsvU. Accessed 10 Feb. 2017.

³"Audi "My Dad's a Space Alien" - YouTube." 25 Sep. 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVRAtQ7XjkM. Accessed 10 Feb. 2017.

“The common image of chemistry is in fact a rather wretched one, full of hazards, risks, and pollution. The word ‘chemicals’ has become synonymous with ‘dangerous substances’ in the popular culture. ‘Unfair,’ we chemists cry, ‘and so uninformed.’ But what is being done to improve the public’s perception of chemistry?”

Does the above Journal of Chemical Education (JCE) excerpt match your view of the general public’s perception of chemistry in 2017? If so, you may be interested to learn that these comments appeared over twenty years ago, on the pages of the September 1996 issue. Its author, Richard N. Zare, then the newly appointed Chair of the governing body of the National Science Foundation, linked his question with the results of a survey of science museums. The survey showed a distinct lack of chemistry in science museums—a missed opportunity to impact this negative perception.

Zare recognized that the pages of JCE are a good place to mine for ideas about exhibits and encouraged readers to share their successful experiences of working with science museums. Articles specifically related to this topic have cropped up here and there in the intervening twenty years, and the February 2017 issue of JCE offers another that could serve the high school teacher as well as science museum exhibit planners: Bringing Organic Chemistry to the Public: Structure and Scent in a Science Museum (available to JCE subscribers).

The authors describe an exhibit with several purposes: “to make organic molecules relatable to the general public,” “to make chemicals less intimidating,” and to communicate that “scents are chemicals, and molecular structure determines biological activity.” Visitors smell various “Scent Bottles” with a goal of identifying the scent. Each bottle has an associated molecular model that shows a related scent compound. The exhibit also provides molecular model kit pieces and handouts for hands-on building of scent molecules. Part of the exhibit shows pairs of molecules that are related to each other structurally. I was amused at one handout’s instruction to “Turn vomit into pineapple!” I can easily picture it appealing to some students, but also appreciate that it shows just how close the two structures are to one another. The molecular model materials and instructions can be reused from year to year.

Figure 4 – Reprinted with permission from Bringing Organic Chemistry to the Public: Structure and Scent in a Science Museum M. Kevin Brown, Laura C. Brown, Karen Jepson-Innes, Michael Lindeau, and Jeremy Stone. Journal of Chemical Education, 94 (2), 251-255. Copyright 2017 American Chemical Society.

For those who wish to create the Scent Bottles, I asked the corresponding authors for advice on locating and purchasing the various scents. Many of the chemicals they used were on hand in their department’s stockroom, or they ordered them from chemical companies. Other options were suggested:

Grocery store (these are items where the scent is basically the pure compound): microwave popcorn (diacetyl), almond extract (benzaldehyde), vanilla extract (vanillin), cinnamon extract (cinnamaldehyde), vinegar (acetic acid), menthol (menthol, not included in the paper), and spearmint extract (R-carvone; S-carvone is the characteristic smell of caraway - I see that extract is also available).

Internet: Butyric acid (vomit) is apparently available (quick google search), but the others might be more difficult to obtain. Pineapple and banana extracts are available, but I’m not sure what the exact compositions are. Amyl acetate (also banana) is available, and my guess is that they’d be able to find most of the fruit esters as well.

Other classrooms: Geosmin is expensive to buy, but if there is a biology teacher nearby who knows how to grow streptomyces bacteria, the characteristic smell that will emanate from the plates is geosmin. (L. C. Brown, personal communication, February 13, 2017)

How might chemical educators use the ideas from the article?

• Turn the exhibit into a hands-on classroom activity for your students.

One possibility for adapting the “Scent Bottles” would be to use Jelly Belly brand jelly bean flavors (including the more disgusting ones offered with Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans, such as dirt and vomit) for guessing, since the sense of smell plays a major role in how we perceive flavor. Or, the exhibit’s molecule building activities could be used as a first, directed attempt at general molecular model building, or as an introduction to organic molecules.

• Use the exhibit as a hands-on activity for community outreach, such as at a science night event, a school open house, or during outreach to elementary schools.
• Collaborate with a local science or children’s museum to offer such an exhibit, either as described or on a smaller scale.

More from the February 2017 Issue

Don’t miss Mary Saecker’s JCE 94.02 February 2017 Issue Highlights for further content from this month’s issue of the Journal. Lots of article titles sparked my interest this month.

Have something to say about a current or past article from JCE? We want to hear! Start by submitting a contribution form, explaining you’d like to contribute to the Especially JCE column. Then, put your thoughts together in a blog post. Questions? Contact us using the ChemEd X contact form.

SaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSave

Fostering Creativity in Chemistry

The February 2017 issue of the Journal of Chemical Education is now available online to subscribers. Topics featured in this issue include: surface chemistry; chemical identity thinking; conceptual understanding; communicating science to the general public; activities and labs linking chemistry and art; history and chemistry; early access to research; technology as instructional support; synthesis laboratories; from the archives: bottle chemistry.

Cover: Surface Chemistry

In Demonstrating the Effect of Surfactant on Water Retention of Waxy Leaf Surfaces, Yu-Chun Chiu, Matthew A. Jenks, Michelle Richards-Babb, Betsy B. Ratcliff, John A. Juvik, and Kang-Mo Ku discuss an inexpensive and engaging laboratory-based activity to help students learn about the scientific method as well as the role of plant epicuticular waxes and surfactant function on waxy plant leaves. This lab can also be used to further students’ understanding of more advanced chemical concepts (such as intermolecular forces, hydrophobicity, surface tension, and the dual polarity of surfactants) and as a practical example of issues faced by the agricultural industry.

Surface science is also discussed and demonstrated in these articles:

Aqua-Art: A Demonstration of Hydrophilic and Hydrophobic Surfaces Fabricated by Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition ~ Shauna P. Flynn, Milena McKenna, Ruairi Monaghan, Susan M. Kelleher, Stephen Daniels, and Aoife MacCormac

Self-Motion of Sodium Benzoate Flakes on a Water Surface: A Demonstration ~ Katherine V. Darvesh and Earl Martin

Editorial

In this month's editorial, Editor-in-Chief Norbert J. Pienta scales The Slippery Slope of Student Evaluations.

Chemical Identity Thinking

Capturing Chemical Identity Thinking (Chemical Education Research) ~ Courtney Ngai and Hannah Sevian

Conceptual Understanding

Using Interlocking Toy Building Blocks To Assess Conceptual Understanding In Chemistry ~ Michael J. Geyer

Using Students’ Conceptions of Air To Evaluate a Guided-Inquiry Activity Classifying Matter Using Particulate Models ~ D. Amanda Vilardo, Ann H. MacKenzie, and Ellen J. Yezierski

Communicating Science to the General Public

Exploration of a Method To Assess Children’s Understandings of a Phenomenon after Viewing a Demonstration Show (Chemical Education Research) ~ Brittland K. DeKorver, Mark Choiand, and Marcy Towns

A Reverse Science Fair that Connects High School Students with University Researchers ~ Brian Mernoff, Amanda R. Aldous, Natalie A. Wasio, Joshua A. Kritzer, E. Charles H. Sykes, and Karen O’Hagan

Bringing Organic Chemistry to the Public: Structure and Scent in a Science Museum ~ M. Kevin Brown, Laura C. Brown, Karen Jepson-Innes, Michael Lindeau, and Jeremy Stone

Activities and Labs Linking Chemistry and Art

The Chemistry of Photography: Still a Terrific Laboratory Course for Nonscience Majors ~Simeen Sattar

Colorful and Creative Chemistry: Making Simple Sustainable Paints with Natural Pigments and Binders ~ Jillian L. Blatti

An Advanced Spectroscopy Lab That Integrates Art, Commerce, and Science as Students Determine the Electronic Structure of the Common Pigment Carminic Acid ~ Suqing Liu, Asami Odate, Isabella Buscarino, Jacqueline Chou, Kathleen Frommer, Margeaux Miller, Alison Scorese, Marisa C. Buzzeo, and Rachel Narehood Austin

Pigment Synthesis for the Exploration of Binding Media Using a Lead-Free Alternative to Chrome Yellow ~ Anne C. Gaquere-Parker, Patricia S. Hill, Michael P. Haaf, Cass D. Parker, N. Allie Doles, Amanda K. Yi, and Todd A. Kaminski

History and Chemistry

Mapping the Teaching of History of Chemistry in Europe (Commentary)~ Ignacio Suay-Matallana ad and José Ramón Bertomeu Sánchez

Periodic Reactions: The Early Works of William C. Bray and Alfred J. Lotka ~ Rinaldo Cervellati and Emanuela Greco

Early Access to Research

Activities in an S-STEM Program To Catalyze Early Entry into Research ~Kate J. Graham, Edward J. McIntee, Annette F. Raigoza, M. Abul Fazal, and Henry V. Jakubowski (This article is available to non-subscribers as part of ACS’s AuthorChoice program.)

Competence-Based, Research-Related Lab Courses for Materials Modeling: The Case of Organic Photovoltaics ~ Karl Sebastian Schellhammer and Gianaurelio Cuniberti

Technology as Instructional Support

In-Class Versus At-Home Quizzes: Which is Better? A Flipped Learning Study in a Two-Site Synchronously Broadcast Organic Chemistry Course ~ Michael A. Christiansen, Alyssia M. Lambert, Louis S. Nadelson, Kami M. Dupree, Trish A. Kingsford

Qualitative and Quantitative Evaluation of Three Types of Student-Generated Videos as Instructional Support in Organic Chemistry Laboratories ~ Melinda C. Box, Cathi L. Dunnagan, Lauren A. S. Hirsh, Clinton R. Cherry, Kayla A. Christianson, Radiance J. Gibson, Michael I. Wolfe, and Maria T. Gallardo-Williams

Stereogame: An Interactive Computer Game That Engages Students in Reviewing Stereochemistry Concepts ~ José Nunes da Silva Júnior, Mary Anne Sousa Lima, João Victor Xerez Moreira, Francisco Serra Oliveira Alexandre, Diego Macedo de Almeida, Maria da Conceição Ferreira de Oliveira, and Antonio José Melo Leite Junior

Synthesis Laboratories

Teaching Experiment To Elucidate a Cation−π Effect in an Alkyne Cycloaddition Reaction and Illustrate Hypothesis-Driven Design of Experiments ~ Elijah J. St.Germain, Andrew S. Horowitz, Dominic Rucco, Evonne M. Rezler, and Salvatore D. Lepore

Thiourea in the Construction of C–S Bonds as Part of an Undergraduate Organic Chemistry Laboratory Course ~ Guo-ping Lu, Fei Chen, and Chun Cai

Preparing 4-Ethoxyphenylurea Using Microwave Irradiation: Introducing Students to the Importance of Artificial Sweeteners and Microwave-Assisted Organic Synthesis (MAOS) ~ Spence C. PilcherJoshua Coats

From the Archives: Bottle Chemistry

This issue includes a low-cost method by Dawid Siodłak for Building Large Molecular Models with Plastic Screw-On Bottle Caps and Sturdy Connectors. Articles in past issues of JCE have used soda bottles in a variety of innovate ways to teach chemistry:

Out of the Blue (JCE Classroom Activity on the Blue Bottle) ~ Mark E. Noble

Improvements to the Whoosh Bottle Rocket Car Demonstration ~ Dean J. Campbell, Felicia A. Staiger, and Chaitanya N. Jujjavarapu

The Dynamic Density Bottle: A Make-and-Take, Guided Inquiry Activity on Density ~ Thomas S. Kuntzleman

Kinetic Explorations of the Candy–Cola Soda Geyser ~ Trevor P. T. Sims and Thomas S. Kuntzleman

Exploring the Gas Chemistry of Old Submarine Technologies Using Plastic Bottles as Reaction Vessels and Models ~ Ryo Horikoshi, Fumitaka Takeiri, Yoji Kobayashi, and Hiroshi Kageyama

Sink or Swim: The Cartesian Diver (JCE Classroom Activity) ~ K. David Pinkerton

A New Quantitative Pressure-Volume Experiment Based on the "Cartesian Diver" ~Judith U. S. Thompson and Kenneth A. Goldsby

More Chemistry in a Soda Bottle: A Conservation of Mass Activity ~ William O. Bare, Kenneth A. Goldsby, Daniel Q. Duffy, and Stephanie A. Shaw

Visualizing Gas Adsorption on Porous Solids: Four Simple, Effective Demonstrations ~ Ocean Cheung

Simple Soda Bottle Solubility and Equilibria ~ Cheryl A. Snyder and Dudley C. Snyder

A Million Reasons to Explore JCE

With over 1,000,000 downloads of content each year, you will always sure to find something useful—including the articles mentioned above, and many more, in the Journal of Chemical Education. Articles that are edited and published online ahead of print (ASAP—As Soon As Publishable) are also available.

Do you have something to share? Write it up for the Journal! For some advice on becoming an author, read Erica Jacobsen’s Commentary. In addition, numerous author resources are available on JCE’s ACS Web site, including recently updated: Author Guidelines, Document Templates, and Reference Guidelines.

Julia Winter has been an energetic and inventive teacher for more than 20 years at Detroit Country Day in Beverly Hills, Michigan. She has always challenged herself to try new things and stay abreast of recent advances in teaching of chemistry. The past few years have been especially exciting. She has worked with a mobile game developer to tranform a whiteboard game into a mobile app that helps students to learn organic chemistry concepts. In January 2016, Julia made the emotional decision to take a leave of absence from teaching. She can now devote all of her energy to pursuing grants and developing even more games as CEO of Alchemie. In March of 2016, I was priviliged to interview Julia. I invite you to view the video and hear her energy and passion for yourself. 

Read the Journal of Chemical Education article related to this interview, Teacher CEO. 

Read an Tech Report Julia co-authored for the Journal of Chemical Education, Chairs!: A Mobile Game for Organic Chemistry Students To Learn the Ring Flip of Cyclohexane.

Read Julia's guest ChemEd X blog post, A Thing for Chairs. 

Visit the Alchemie/Chairs! website.