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UH Chem celebrates elements, moles

This week is National Chemistry Week, and the UH chapter of the American Chemical Society (ACS) is celebrating the 140th anniversary of the periodic table of the elements.

This year’s theme is ‘Chemistry-It’s Elemental!’

‘The American Chemical Society here at UH has an event planned on campus for every day of the week,’ demonstration coordinator Emily Huckabay of the ACS said.

The whole week will be filled with interactive and fun activities organized by UH’s ACS.

ACS members will be passing out flyers, short puzzles, jokes and more, Huckabay said.

The mission of National Chemistry Week is to reach out to the public, particularly elementary and secondary school children, to promote a mechanism for effectively mobilizing ACS local sections and to motivate ACS membership through local section activities.

‘Most of the obvious results come for children who love seeing things,’ chemistry professor Simon Bott said.

Bott encouraged students to look around the campus and town for exhibitions and information pertaining to chemistry.’

The ASC is excited about National Chemistry Week, and all of their preparations are in place.

‘We will be out mostly around entrance 14 and the (University Center).’ We’ll be all over (the Lamar Fleming Jr. building), old science, (the Science and Research building) and (the Science and Engineering Classroom building),’ Huckabay said.

Members of the American Chemical Society first celebrated National Chemistry Week in 1987.’

By 1989, it was expanded into a biannual week-long event.’ During the celebration, teachers, students, volunteers and workers gather together to send a simple message:’ Chemistry is important.’

‘Science education generally is not great around the country.’ Chemistry is a dirty word, as is chemical,’ Bott said. ‘National Chemistry Week is an attempt to bring chemistry to the public in a positive sense, helping them to realize that it’s actually a very useful science.’

The ACS is working to expose students like pre-pharmacy freshman Owais Gopalani to chemistry.’

‘This is my first semester at UH,’ Gopalani said. ‘I am very excited about how the National Chemistry Week would be running.’

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