September 2009
Vol 46, No 5. Selected articles and reviews available online to all. Full issue available online to subscribers.
Column
Applied Science - where next?
Nuffield Foundation report highlights growing uptake of Applied Science courses at Key Stge 4 and issues with A-level Applied Science as a progression route for students post-16
Silver success for UK Olympiad team
UK team of four A-level students wins four silver medals at the International Chemistry Olympiad hosted by the University of Cambridge in July
RSC HE teaching award winners
Claire McDonnell is the recipient of the 2009 RSC Education Division's Higher Education Teaching Award and Stuart Bennett is the first recipient of the RSC's new Education Award
Short film wins Bill Bryson prize
Students from Ridgeway School in Plymouth are the overall winners of the Royal Society of Chemistry's (RSC) 2009 Bill Bryson science communication competition
Along came ChemSpider...
ChemSpider is a free to use chemistry search engine that allows users to search for chemical structures and their associated information published on the Internet
CFOF - the way forward
The RSC is set to continue to manage several Chemistry for Our Future projects including the teacher fellow scheme and Spectroscopy in a suitcase
Soundbite molecules - tamiflu
Simon Cotton, teacher at Uppingham School, takes a look at those compounds that find themselves in the news or relate to our everyday lives. In this issue: Tamiflu
Web watch
Tony Tooth looks at some websites that may be of interest to chemistry teachers. In this issue: sharing teaching materials, science images and SATIS revisited
Letters
Exhibition Chemistry
Combustion of methanol
Demonstrations to capture the student's imagination, by Adrian Guy of Blundell's School. In this issue: combustion of methanol
The Elements
Features
Sonochemistry - beyond synthesis
Sonochemistry, the use of sound energy to induce physical or chemical changes within a medium, has a growing number of applications in fields such as medicine and nanotechnology
Why does cotton feel 'cool'?
An investigation into the structure and properties of cellulose that make cotton clothes feel 'cool' provides a real context for undergraduate spectroscopy lab work
In pursuit of bombykol
In 1959 Aldoph Butenandt identified and synthesised the first pheromone, bombykol. Since then scientists have discovered how male silkworm moths receive this chemical message
Chemical tornadoes
An alternative and inspirational way to demonstrate acid-base reactions and fluorescence and chemiluminescence
Solving an infectious problem
Joseph Lister's use of phenol as an antiseptic revolutionised surgical practice in the 19th century. But was he the first to use this antiseptic technique?
Distillates
Creativity in the curriculum
Researchers from Durham University investigate what teachers understand by creativity and how they nurture 'creative thought' among their students in science lessons
Teaching science to refugee learners
Based on a small-scale study Australian researchers have produced materials designed to help science students for whom English is a second language
Working memory
Research shows that students perform better when they are taught using resources designed to engage their working memory
Reviews
Is arsenic an aphrodisiac? The sociochemistry of an element
William R. Cullen
Misconceptions in chemistry: addressing perceptions in chemical education
Hans-Dieter Barke, Al Hazari and Sileshi Yitbarek
Heinemann Baccalaureate: chemistry standard level
Catrin Brown and Mike Ford
Chemistry 2 for OCR
David Acaster and Lawrie Ryan
Endpoint
Infochem
