As scientists passionate about both education and structural chemistry, we are always on the look-out for opportunities to teach students about our work, even when they least expect it. For it is often the unexpected joy of making a connection outside of the classroom that cements new knowledge in the mind of a student. This desire to educate others about the relevance of structural data also fits with the charitable mission of the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre which is to promote the science of crystallography for the public benefit. As such we seek opportunities to reach the general public through outreach events and via content on our website. To this end, we have been involved in two separate projects this year devoted to employing extracurricular approaches to structural chemistry education. In March of this year we participated in the 25th annual Cambridge Science Festival held in conjunction with the University of Cambridge, UK. For this day-long event, we employed a series of hands-on demonstrations for students to learn about aspects of structural chemistry, crystallography and x-ray diffraction. Throughout this year, we have also been participating in a celebration of the International Year of the Periodic Table through our IYPTCrystals project. This effort seeks to present a crystal structure featuring or related to every element of the periodic table, thus encouraging students to learn about both crystallography and the periodic table. This presentation will focus on the specific activities we employed for both projects and how individuals and educators can make use of these materials in their homes and classrooms.

Structural chemistry in an unstructured way: Teaching crystallography in informal settings

2019 Fall National Meeting

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