Elementary teachers are on the front line of informing the public about the importance of science. Based on the extensive experience, the author believes that success in teaching significant science (like chemistry) to future elementary teachers is based on either (1) �fun� experiments or (2) �real world� experiments and questions that indicate the value of science.  Telling a good story is also very important to communicating science (see C&EN editor Rudy Baum in C&EN 3-22-2010).  Thus, a real world story is told about how, during the worst economic depression of the last 2 centuries, a chemist created over a million jobs using a renewable resource as a result of a chemical analysis based on the most basic of simple separation methods known as selective dissolving and evaporation! The author has shown that both future elementary teachers and 4th/5th grade students are capable of performing meaningful real world experiments with very low math skills.

How a simple chemical analysis created a million jobs

240th National Meeting (2010)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.