Today I'm at the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry's General Assembly in Glasgow, where we are planning the 2011 International Year of Chemistry. A lot of exciting ideas are being discussed and you can already see some of the projects and events planned, together with UNESCO.
Here, we've been talking about various chemistry outreach programmes, based on cutting edge topics and creative approaches, which hope to contribute to the year. There are too many to mention in detail, but they include:
- Children challenging industry is a UK-based project run by the University of York's Chemical Industry Education Centre. Primary school children visit local companies and take part in hands-on chemistry experiments, while their teachers can get constant support from a CCI coordinator.
- Xperimania - a project I run at European Schoolnet in cooperation with CEFIC. Children are challenged to create their own experiments to investigate the properties of materials. The competition is now closed but all the teaching guides and tools are still available.
- The British Royal Society of Chemistry has an excellent set of resources for students and teachers. They provide homework help, games, teacher training and much more.
