Category Archives: Education

8th Grade Science as a Path to Madness

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So it happens that my kid is in 8th grade and is studying chemistry for the first time in earnest. As luck would have it, the kid’s teacher is of Haitian extraction and is on some kind of leave of absence either due to illness or possibly because 3 family members perished in the quake. I don’t know. This fellow seems to be a good teacher.

His replacement, however, is not very good. In fact, his replacement is … awful.

For the first time, I had a serious discussion with a principal about a teacher’s performance. The principal is apparently aware of the substitutes classroom foibles and sins of omission. The principal’s own son is a student in that class and so he has a personal interest in the matter.

So, after some time with the kid at the whiteboard in our basement last night, it dawned on me that I had completely forgotten how utterly strange atomic theory and the chemical phenomena that derive from it really are. It is all quite abstract and maybe even a little weird.

The curriculum gives some emphasis to understanding the concept of pH. Alright. But this requires some ideas about logarithms and exponents. Then there is the matter of chemical equilibrium. While kids are wrestling with the math, you are also trying to tell them that only a very small number of water molecules actually come apart into ions. But the kids need to be comfortable with the notion of ions and charge.

But, what makes hydrogen ion different from hydroxide ion, really?  And why does hydroxide ion have the negative charge? How is it that acids corrode iron to form H2, but hydroxide does not? What does it mean to be an acid? What does it mean to be a base?

You can try to use structural models of sulfuric acid rather than line formulae like H2SO4 to appeal to the idea that these are little things with attachments that do things. One could argue that it is a bit more concrete that way- little structures with parts that are detachable. But as soon as you start drawing structures, you run into a rats nest of intermeshed concepts relating to bonds and lone pairs. Then there is the bloody octet rule, covalency, and orbitals!!!

For crying out loud!! How does anybody learn this stuff?? The learner has to absorb 20 abstract concepts almost simultaneously to begin to “get” chemistry.  Even worse, if a chemist/parent teaches the kid about a concept, almost certainly it will not mesh with curriculum, leading to confusion and tears for the teacher and the student.

I taught orgo to college sophomores, but evidently 8th grade chemistry eludes me. I’m just too dense to grasp the level of abstraction they will accept. Oh!  To have an hour with Piaget!

Retrocurricular Translocation of Post-Modern Emphasis in Chemical Pedagogy

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I couldn’t resist a sarcastic allusion to post-modernism, whatever the hell that is. What could possibly be under such a bullshit heading? Well, all of my tramping around chemical plants from Europe, Russia, North America, and Asia as well as local mines and mills keeps leading me to an interesting question. Exactly who is being served in the current course of chemistry education? Is it reasonable that everyone coming out of a ACS certified degree program in chemistry is on a scholar track by default? Since I have been in both worlds, this issue of chemistry as a lifetime adventure is never far from my mind.

What are we doing to serve areas outside of the glamor fields of biochemistry and pharmaceuticals? There are thriving industries out there that are not biochemically or pharmaceutically oriented. There is a large and global polymer industry as well as CVD, fuels, silanes, catalysts, diverse additives industries, food chemistry, flavors & fragrances, rubber, paints & pigments, and specialty chemicals. There are highly locallized programs that serve localized demand. But what if you live away from an area with polymer plants? How do you get polymer training? How do you even know if polymer chemistry is what you have been looking for?

Colleges and universities can’t offer everything. They attract faculty who are specialists in areas of topical interest at the time of hire. They try to set up shop and gather a research group in their specialty if funding comes through. Otherwise, they teach X contact hours in one of the 4 pillars of chemistry- Physical, inorganic, organic, and analytical chemistry- and offer the odd upper level class in an area of interest.

Chances are that you’ll find more opportunities to learn polymer chemistry as an undergraduate in Akron, OH, than in Idaho or New Mexico.  Local strengths may be reflected in local chemistry departments. But chances are that in most schools you’ll find faculty who joined after a post-doc or from another teaching appointment. This is how the academy gets inbred. The hiring of pure scholars is inevitable and traditional. But what happens is that the academy gets isolated from the external world and focused on enthusiasms that may serve civilization in distant ways if at all. The question of accountability is dismissed with a sniff and a wave of the hand of academic freedom. Engineering departments avoid this because they are in constant need of real problems to solve. Most importantly, though, engineers understand the concept of scarcity in economics. Chemists will dismiss it as a non-observable.

One often finds that disconnects are bridged by other disciplines because chemistry is so narrowly focused academically. It would be a good thing for industry if more degreed chemists found their way into production environments. I visited a pharmaceutical plant in Taiwan whose production operators were all chemical engineers. Management decided that they required this level of education. But, why didn’t they choose chemists?  Could it be that they assumed that engineers were more mechanically oriented and economically savvy?

Gold mines will hire an analyst to do assays, but metallurgists to develop extraction and processing. Are there many inorganic chemistry programs with a mining orientation? Can inorganikkers step into raw material extraction from a BA/BS program or is that left to mining engineers?

In my exploration I am beginning to see a few patterns that stand out. One is the virtual abdication of  US mining operations to foreign companies. If you look at uranium or gold, there are substantial US mining claims held by organizations from Australia, South Africa, and Canada.

So, what if? What if a few college chemistry departments offered a course wherein students learned to extract useful materials from the earth? What if students were presented with a pile of rock and debris and told to pull out some iron or zinc or copper or borax or whatever value may happen to be in the mineral?

What if?? Well, that means that chemistry department faculty would have to be competent to offer such an experience. It also means that there must be a shop and some kilo-scale equipment to handle comminution, leaching, flotation, and calcining/roasting. It’s messy and noisy and the sort of thing that the princes of the academy (Deans) hate.

What could be had from such an experience? First, some hours spent swinging a hammer in the crushing process might be a good thing for students. It would give them a chance to consider the issues associated with the extraction of value from minerals. Secondly, it would inevitably lead to more talent funneling into areas that have suffered from a lack of chemical innovation. Third, it might have the effect of igniting a bit more interest in this necessary industry by American investors. The effect of our de-industrialization of the past few generations has been the wind-down of the American metals extraction industry (coal excluded).

If you doubt the effect on future technologies of our present state of partial de-industrialization, look into the supplies of critical elements like indium, neodymium, cobalt, rhodium, platinum, and lithium. Ask yourself why China has been dumping torrents of money into the mineral rich countries of Africa.

I can say from experience that some of the most useful individuals in a chemical company can be the people who are just as much at home in a shop as in a lab. People with mechanical aptitude and the ability to use shop tools are important players. Having a chemistry degree gives them the ability to work closely with engineers to keep unique process equipment up and running efficiently.

Whatever else we do, and despite protestations from the linear thinkers in the HR department, we need to encourage tinkerers and polymaths.

This kind of experience doesn’t have to be for everyone. God knows we don’t want to inconvenience Grandfather Merck’s or Auntie Lilly’s pill factories. Biochemistry students wouldn’t have to take time away from their lovely gels and analytical students could take a pass lest their slender digits become soiled. Some students are tender shoots who will never have intimate knowledge of how to bring a 1000 gallon reactor full of reactants to reflux, or how to deal with 20 kg of BuLi contaminated filter cake. But I hasten to point out that there are many students with such a future before them and their BA/BS degree in chemistry provides a weak background for industrial life.

A good bit of the world outside the classroom is concerned with making stuff.  I think we need to return to basics and examine the supply chain of elements and feedstocks that we have developed a dependence upon. American industry needs to reinvest in operations in this country and other countries, just like the Canadians, South Africans, and Australians have. And academia should rethink the mission of college chemistry in relation to the needs of the world, rather than clinging to the aesthetic of a familiar curriculum or to the groupthink promulgated by rockstar research groups. We need scholars. But we also need field chemists to solve problems in order to make things happen.

O-Chem Blues

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A friend is a tenured prof at a local university and teaches the 9 AM organic section. My friend lamented the consumer behavior of students in O-Chem and mentioned getting slaughtered on some internet ratings site. Tenure is not an issue for this prof, but student evaluations are still a big deal.

The question my friend has trouble with is this jewel- “Is this going to be on the test”? This arouses considerable frustration and ill humor. Some profs have no taste for this cat & mouse stuff and will be upfront with what is on the exam. Others are more elusive and Darwinistic. One wonders if these lone standard bearers could have excelled on their own exams when they were in school.

We discussed the possibility of suitable replies that are courteous but firm. There is no need or benefit to a smackdown for insolence. Basically, students need to recognize the main themes of the chapters and answer reasonable questions therefrom. The key is to do the problems. That has always been the key to orgo.

Some have been scornful about “teaching from the book” and supplement their curriculum with content that suits their fancy. I think this is fine for certain upper level coursework. Where this strategy fails is when students need to comprehend the pillars of chemistry for later and more advanced concepts. Then other content becomes a kind of distracting indulgence. Chemistry is vertical.

The problem is that the academic expectations may ratchet up a few notches in college. Students who may be accustomed to getting good grades without too much sweat are often mortally threatened by the prospects of getting less than an A. But this is just a part of the total growth experience and a good prof will be sensitive to this frailty. The trick is to help these students find their own path and go for it.

Bronx Cheer for National Geographic

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After supper last night I parked in front of the tubule and switched on the Discovery Channel. There was an intriguing program on the Cueva de los Cristales (Cave of Crystals) in Mexico. The Naica mine has become famous for its gigantic selenite crystals (calcium sulfate). National Geographic filmed a program on these wondrous crystals and it has been broadcast on the Discovery Channel.

What has raised my ire on this is not the production value. As usual, the cimematography was superb. What is disappointing is the story they chose to tell.

What I have noticed in the public science programming world is a particular weakness that quietly infects writers, directors, and producers. The weakness has to do with the fear of boring their audience. Rather than risk a pandemic of somnolence, writers kick up the script a notch with undercurrents of intrigue and a suggestion of danger for the intrepid parties crawling in the muck or harassing gators.

That’s fine. It never hurts to plan for short attention spans in the audience. But what suffers is a sense of proportion. When the focus shifts from the subject of the expedition to the members of the expedition, the program crosses the line into the tawdry world of show business.

Yes, it is quite hot in the cave. Yes, heatstroke is an issue to be wary of. But, what about the crystals?? What are they made of? Where is the water from which they were precipitated from? How does crystallization work?

And, where is the chemist on the team? National Geographic brought together a geologist, a planetary astronomer, a nuclear physicist, a biologist, and a few others who were not identified. This is a common omission on the part of people outside of the chemical sciences. Nobody knows what the hell we do!

For the showbiz effect, they brought in a planetary astronomer, Dr. Chris McKay, to examine the cave for possible implications on Martian exploration and the Evolution of Life. To media people, science equals- 1) Space Science, 2) Medicine, 3) Computer Science, and 4) oh, did I say Space Science?

It turns out I used to know Chris McKay. He was a TA in an astronomy course I took at the University of Colorado ca 1978. He was a geat guy and, unlike other misfits misanthropes bed wetters grad students in the astro/geophysics program, an attentive and caring instructor. He was (and is) a true believer in space exploration. We spent a long and chilly evening together in the Sommers Bosch Observtory at CU manually guiding the 24 inch telescope on a guide star for some lengthy time exposures of a string of galaxies. We used 3×5 Tri-X plates hypered in H2.

This showbiz reflex is a chronic condition and I am sorry to see National Geographic succumb to it.

Transformative Research in Many Ways

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A friend who is presently on sabbatical has started a blog about his academic experiences in primarily undergraduate institutions (PUI). It is called Sabbatical Epistles. He mentions a key phrase that is being batted around; it is Transformative Research. According to the NSF, transformative research is-

research that has the capacity to revolutionize existing fields, create new subfields, cause paradigm shifts, support discovery, and lead to radically new technologies.

The context of the use of this phrase was that research funding at PUI’s will increasingly be put to the merit test of transformative research. As such, research into chemical synthesis at PUI’s is especially at risk of not qualifying for funding. I suppose the concern is that multistep synthesis projects for undergrads requires lots of time and skills that undergrads do not have.

Who is against transformative research? It is like motherhood and apple pie. Everybody wants to fund or be part of this kind of effort. We should always ask that research funds be put towards this end. But there is more to it than just an affirmation of meritocracy.

What I sense is that the golden age of undergraduate research programs may be fading into some darker period of scant interest.  The scientific establishment continues to grow larger with each passing year. And in parallel, major research universities continue to add programs, courses, grad students, faculty, bricks and mortar, and administration based on the allocation of grant money. Big institutions depend on grant money to a large extent. 

As grant money gets tighter, program requirements will increasingly filter the small fish from the big fish. Large institutions have many alumni in influential positions and in the end, the programmatic mind-set of large research institutions in conjunction with the definition of success as understood by administrators of first tier schools will win the day. 

There is a pecking order to this. A kind of snobismus. And undergraduate research is not too high in the pecking order.  In relation to undergraduate research in the area of synthesis, in most schools this is the only opportunity for an undergrad to get some advanced experience in the synthetic arts. If you have tried to hire a synthetic savvy BA/BS, you know they are hard to find. In my experience, most synthetikkers want to go to grad school. They want more.

Just in case anybody is listening, I want to make a pitch for continued and stronger funding of undergraduate research. As a student, it changed the course of my life in terms of growth and development. As a former mentor of undergraduate researchers as a post doc and prof, I can say that nearly all of my students are now either PhD’s or MD’s. They are all contibuting greatly to the benefit of our society in industry, teaching hospitals, and academia. I am proud of them and I’d do it over in a heartbeat.  The pedagogy isn’t in dispute, I suppose. But the method of funding is.

Spoolhenge

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Unlike many of my colleagues in the Chemical Industry, say in New Jersey for instance, Th’ Gaussling is able to enjoy a pleasant country drive to and from work every day. Among the many sights to enjoy is Spoolhenge. This curious archeological artifact is thought to have been constructed by ancient electricians in the early Cupracene Age of the Sparkezoic Era.

Who were these people? What strange rituals did they perform in this maze of paleospools? Only a few crude wirenuts fashioned out of elk antler remain in the soil surrounding these ruins.

Writer and amateur paleophrenologist Anders van der Klopp suggests the ruins may have been part of a temple built by ancient astronauts who crash landed on earth in the distant past. Van der Klopp’s panspermia theory is not taken seriously by mainstream paleophrenologists who balk at the idea of electricians in space. Perhaps one day we will solve the mystery.

Spoolhenge

Spoolhenge

Faculty Position Announcement

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Pultroon College in Guapo, Arizona, situated in the beautiful Nitpiq Valley, is seeking to fill two high level postions. Position A1301– The college is accepting curriculum vitae from exceptional candidates for the position of Dean of Entertainment Arts and Sciences. The College is seeking senior level applicants with experience in catering and screenplay writing. While accomplished sitcom writers are encouraged to apply, preference will be given to writers of action/adventure feature length films. Coen Brothers experience is considered a plus.  Position R2139– An exceptional candidate is sought to fill the position of Hector Shushmann Professor of Docent and Concessionaire Studies. This Chair is endowed by the Juju Family Foundation. The successful candidate is expected to carry out an aggressive research and recruitment program in any of the following areas: advanced concessions studies; soda fountain technology; advanced Usher and Ticket studies; or theater seating design. The application period closes December 1, 2008. Pultroon College is an Equal Discrimination Employer. Persons of gender are especially encouraged to apply:  http://www.pultroon.org.

Are B-Schools Paying Attention to this Fiasco?

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The dam burst of banking disasters and federal bail-outs of firms “too big to fail” has brought to light the fragility of our banking and investments system. Like a tropical depression that forms in the eastern Atlantic ocean and gradually feeds on the warm waters and moist air until it makes landfall as a rampaging storm, the combination of greed, financial deregulation, and enthusiastic liquidity on the part of the Fed has now spun up into a full fledged economic storm.

In an essay posted on CNN.com, Columbia Professor Joseph Stiglitz, among others, points to some causes of the present calamity on the banking and financial businesses. Stiglitz says-

“One can say the Fed failed twice, both as a regulator and in the conduct of monetary policy. Its flood of liquidity (money made available to borrow at low interest rates) and lax regulations led to a housing bubble. When the bubble broke, the excessively leveraged loans made on the basis of overvalued assets went sour.” 

“The new “innovations” simply hid the extent of systemic leverage and made the risks less transparent; it is these innovations that have made this collapse so much more dramatic than earlier financial crises …”

The mess that taxpayers and investors are left with is the result of greed and recklessness on the part of elite “business leaders” in conjunction with Federal officials only too anxious to deregulate and discount. This is not a failure based on physical reality. It is a failure based on greed and poor judgement. It rests on a morally shallow and sadly misguided philosophy that mere acquisition of currency is reason enough for being and is the sole measure of success.

As a start, it is my hope that the Deans and faculty of our business schools can summon some kind of movement to reform their admissions standards and refine their ethics curricula.

Perhaps certain finance practitioners need to be trained and certified in a manner similar to actuarial professionals?  Seems to me that the people who launch financial instrument schemes with the potential to collapse an economy should be at least as well trained in risk management as an actuary.

A firm proposing a financial instrument for sale to the public should be required to prepare a mathematical model with macroeconomic inputs to model the potential for instability. The kind of discipline needed to do this modeling could help people refine the fund structure so it remains manageable in a broader range of economic conditions. This would also provide for a real transparency to regulating agencies and possibly even investors.  But most importantly, if you want to model it, then you have to understand it. And that is part of what has been lacking.

CERN to Light Up Large Hadron Collider

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CERN has announced that the first injection of particles into the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will occur between 9:00 and 10:00 Wednesday, September 10th, 2008.  Fears of spurious black hole formation have been discounted. The final synchronization was a success. Safety has been reiterated.

This is big time science, man. While in Geneva you won’t be able to spit without hitting a particle physicist.

How do they keep the superconducting magnets chilled? Air Liquide was selected to provide the liquid helium supply to maintain the 1.8 K operating temperature of the magnets over the 27 km length of the LHC.

According to CERN, the cool down phase of LHC preparation required 10,000 tonnes of liquid nitrogen and 130 tonnes of liquid helium to fill the 8 magnet sectors.

The peak beam parameters are quite interesting. Check out this link to PhD Comics.

Organic and Inorganic Carbon??

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Thanks to a friend in Grand Rapids, I was linked to a blog hosted by the NY Times called Tierneylab.com.  The writer of the post was sounding off about a pet peeve relating to the use of the term “Organic”.  It seems that there is some confusion as to the use of the adjective organic in relation to certain carbon-containing substances. Tempest in a teapot, you ask? Let the chemistry community decide.

The problem begins to show itself when astronomers and planetary scientists start describing carbon containing materials found in planetary exploration as organic.  Back on earth, the word organic is burdened with both common and scientific usage. So, when descriptions of organic materials found on other worlds begin to arise in discourse, the intent of the usage becomes unclear.

For instance, it could suggest to people that such discovered materials were put in place by some kind of life form. It could suggest to nondiscriminating audiences that the presence of carbon implies life, past, present, or future. Or it might well suggest to higher level audiences that biology-ready raw materials are in place.

The scientists working with the Phoenix Lander have an interesting analytical chore in front of them. Using a robotic platform on Mars, they want to distinguish the presence of organic vs inorganic carbon. What is meant by organic and inorganic is less than clear. But it seems that organic refers to something other than CO2 and carbonate.

In the relatively few journal articles I’ve seen relating to this, the authors are not always precise about the kinds of molecules they are referring to as organic. Irrespective of what is said in the articles, when this work gets to a public forum, the meaning behind the word organic becomes even less clear.   

The TierneyLab post does bring up an interesting question about what is necessary for a substance to be considered organic.  Do graphite, diamond, Buckyball, or soot forms of carbon qualify as organic? What about CO2, CS2, carbonates, CO, HCN, or calcium carbide? Does it make more sense to refer to organic and inorganic carbon, where inorganic carbon is defined as … well, what? 

Seriously, what would it be? CO2? Carbon dioxide is incorporated into glucose by plants and this seems quite organic.  Carbonate? This anion is used to balance our blood pH. Our own metabolic CO2 helps to provide carbonate. This product of metabolism should qualify as organic. CO? Well, Carbon monoxide undergoes Fischer-Tropsch reactions to produce aldehydes. This seems very organic as well. Perhaps the target is a substance with C-H bonds?

There is nothing inherently biological about the C-H bond. The Saturnian moon Titan is blanketed with a thick layer of CH4 (methane) and it seems unlikely that it is of biological origin. Indeed, hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe and carbon the 4th. That hydrogen and carbon atoms could find each other to form trace methane in a proto solar system isn’t too much of a stretch.

Organic and Inorganic Carbon.  How about we just leave it all as organic? 

Here is what I think. It does matter if a scientist or writer is using language in an imprecise way. If writing or speech implies, for instance, that Mars is rich in life giving organic nutrients when in fact Martian organic matter is really carbonate and CO2, then I believe the language must be altered to reflect that condition. A writer should not leave an impression of past or incipient planetary fecundity when in fact the planet may be an inert ball of metal silicates dusted with a bit of carbonate when the 6 torr CO2 atmosphere kicks up a breeze.