[neact] NEACT Summer Conference - please respond
- From: Jerusha Vogel <jj@xxxxxxxx>
- To: neact@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2011 15:01:32 -0500
Hi all,
This summer's NEACT conference will be held Aug 1-4 at St. Joseph's in
Maine. It is 30 minutes outside of Portland; 2 hours north of Boston. In
recognition of the UN declaring 2011 the International Year of Chemistry, we
have decided to have the theme of this year's summer conference be:
Chemistry in Today's World. I have been thinking about the presentations
for this topic and have listed below several I would like to see. I welcome
your suggestions for speakers and other ideas for presentations.
One type of presentation under this topic would include teaching in today's
world. Presentations could include what is the public's view of chemistry
and how can we, as chemistry teachers influence that. Also, given the
recession, I would love someone to lead a workshop or presentation on ideas
of how to teach effectively with overly large class sizes. We should have a
presentation on teaching critical thinking and the scientific method vs.
teaching content to meet the requirements of the various standardized and AP
tests. I would also like to see a workshop on how to teach critical
thinking. Texting is becoming the bane of many teachers - does anyone want
to lead a workshop on how we can use this type of ubiquitous technology for
our advantage? We keep hearing that we are way behind other countries in
Math and Science. What are the other countries doing differently? Can we
learn from them?
Another type of presentation could be around world issues: The third world
has many issues that chemistry can mitigate or solve. One of the biggest
issues is safe drinking water. I would like to see a presentation on the
challenges and chemistry solutions that are out there to bring clean water
to people. I recall a Chematters article from several years ago that talked
about some communities that once they built wells became terribly sick due
to Arsenic leaching into them. I'm sure that there are a plethora of great
water related labs that someone could connect to that presentation with a
workshop. Food is another huge issue facing much of the world. How is
genetic modification, pesticides, organic farming and such addressing these
issues? Another good presentation would be from someone who can explain the
various roles that chemistry played in cleaning up the BP oil spill.
One of the roles that we as educators face is trying to connect chemistry to
the "real" world. As part of this, many schools have started teaching a
forensic science course at their schools. There were several requests in
the feedback forms after the last conference to have some forensic workshops
(with the focus on the chemistry more than the bio).
I am currently trying to see if we can have an additional component of the
summer conference include an in-depth safety training.
These are ideas - I'm sure that you can come up with even better ones under
this theme. I need your help in coming up with good presentations and
workshops and help finding presenters. If you can give me any suggestions
on people to contact who might be able to talk on the ideas suggested above,
or ones that you come up with, PLEASE contact me. I can't do this without
your help. Feel free to volunteer yourself! Our budget is pretty low, as
we try to keep the conference cost down so keep that in mind when thinking
of speakers. However we have found that sometimes even professionals from
industry are willing to speak for free or just a small honorarium given who
we are.
Thanks so much for your continuing support for NEACT and all your great
ideas.
Jerusha Vogel
NEACT President
2011 Summer Conference Program Chair
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