Chemical Education Today

1398 Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 81 No. 10 October 2004 • www.JCE.DivCHED.org

Association Report: ACS

Chemistry.org/kids

A Great Resource for Elementary School Science Activitiesby James Kessler

Elementary school children are fascinated by sciencedemonstrations and hands-on science activities. Measuring,pouring, and mixing liquids; dissolving solids; watching colorchanges; seeing bubbling; and using a thermometer, drop-per, and magnifier are all experiences children enjoy.

As a parent, teacher, or other facilitator of hands-on sci-ence activities, an adult can provide the structure and guid-ance to make an activity fun for children as well as a valuablelearning experience. But finding reliable, safe, and age-ap-propriate science activities is not as easy as you would think.To help provide such a resource, the Education Division’sOffice of K–8 Science, the Membership Division’s Office ofCommunity Activities, and Chemistry.org have teamed upto create a new online collection of hands-on science activitiesfor children in grades 3–6. The new Web site, chemistry.org/kids (1), offers adults and children many choices of hands-on activities along with science information, interviews withscientists, games, and practical applications of science to achild’s everyday life.

Rationale

Over the years, the K–8 Science Office and the Officeof Community Activities have created and published a widevariety of science activities and information for adults to usewith elementary-age children. During that same time, manyinquiries have been received from ACS members and otherparents, teachers, and interested adults searching for scienceactivities they can do with young children. There has alsobeen a renewed emphasis on the importance of children learn-ing science by doing science since the publication of the Na-tional Science Education Standards (2). The last five to tenyears have also seen the growing use of the Internet by el-ementary school teachers and the general public. With a criti-cal mass of activities, a consistent, if not growing demand, afocus on the value of hands-on activities as a teaching andlearning tool, and the increasing comfort and access toInternet technology, the time seemed right to bring togetherin one easily accessible location all ACS science activities forchildren. This was the thinking behind the creation ofchemistry.org/kids.

Features

The chemistry.org/kids home page, which changes eachmonth, features links to a highlighted activity, a fun sciencefact or article, a short interview with a chemist (conductedby an on-site stuffed mole named Meg A. Mole), and selected

products. The left-hand navigation bar provides easy accessto the three main areas of the site: Celebrating Chemistry,WonderNet, and a special section for parents and teachers.

Celebrating Chemistry contains the complete ACS Na-tional Chemistry Week (NCW) publications for the years2001, 2002, and 2003 in downloadable form. Each year thenew ACS NCW publication will be added. Each of thesepublications contains activities, articles, games, and informa-tion dealing with the NCW theme for that year.

WonderNet is a resource of hands-on activities in morethan 30 physical science topics. Each topic features three ac-tivities with extensions and background science informationfor the student and adult. A new WonderNet topic is addedevery second month and all previous topics are archived andindexed alphabetically. WonderNet also includes an interac-tive feature called “What’s Up?” that allows children to ex-plore the connection between a science topic and theireveryday experiences.

The parents and teachers section features indexes of ar-ticles and activities from both Celebrating Chemistry and theChemists Celebrate Earth Day publications. This content hasbeen reformatted into individual PDF files for easy down-loading and use. Many of these activities are available in Span-ish. This section also allows users to search the topic indexfor WonderNet and provides links to science activity books,safety, and other products.

All activities in Celebrating Chemistry and WonderNethave been reviewed for safety and use only common, inex-pensive materials that can be found in the grocery store. Sincethe activities correlate closely to topics covered in the elemen-

Home page forchemistry.org/kids.

Chemical Education Today

www.JCE.DivCHED.org • Vol. 81 No. 10 October 2004 • Journal of Chemical Education 1399

tary school science curriculum, scientists and other adultscan use the site to get activity ideas for presenting activitiesin an elementary school classroom. Activities fromchemistry.org can also be used by scientists and other adultsfor National Chemistry Week or Chemists Celebrate EarthDay events. Readers are encouraged to make local teachersaware of the site as a resource for activities to supplementthose they already use from textbooks or science kit pro-grams. If you are looking for science activities and informa-tion for children in grades 3–6, the new site, chemistry.org/kids is a great place to start.

Literature Cited

1. Web site for Chemistry.org Kids. http://www.chemistry.org/kids(accessed Jul 2004).

2. National Research Council. National Science Education Stan-dards; National Academy Press: Washington, DC, 1996; http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/nses/html/ (accessed Jul 2004).

James Kessler is in the Education Division of the AmericanChemical Society, 1155 Sixteenth Street, NW, Washington, DC20036; jhk97@acs.org.