Classics from 50 years

Celebrating relationship humour from the 2000s

We decided to dig out some of Richard Furlough’s cartoons from the 2000s. We selected these dating and relationship chemical cartoons with Valentine’s Day in mind.

A simple electronegativity demonstration device

Many chemistry students experience difficulty in grasping the abstract concept of electronegativity and its significance in discussions involving polar covalent and nonpolar covalent bonding.

Quotes

Much has changed in the last 50 years, both with Chem 13 News, and the views of chemists. The following quotes were taken from the first year of publication, and definitely highlight the commonly accepted views of women in STEM at the time.

Introducing paper chromatography

Doug De La Matter used the following story to explain the ideas of chromatography to his grade 9 science classes. They seem to understand the concepts so well that it becomes a useful reference when we talk about solubility and intermolecular forces again in senior chemistry classes. I present it as a fable and embellish it with lots of spurious details.

Christmas carols

“Deck the Labs” was printed in a 1980 December issue of Chem 13 News from George R. Hague, when he was at Hackensack High School, Hackensack, NJ. After 38 years this carol is still being sung.

Aladdin’s lamp

A reprint from 1993 -- Gary Marcoux started this class with “Does anybody know what I have in this flask?” The students shuffle their feet and glance at each other, trying to see if anybody’s taking notes. “You know, I could have anything in here, anything at all”, I continue while holding up the flask. “This could be Aladdin’s Lamp.

The egg experiment

I do the "egg experiment" in the third week of school; it follows activities involving the operation of the balance, the precision of volumetric equipment, methods for the determination of volume and the uncertainty of measurement. The experiment is to collect enough data to verify or refute the statement that "the density of a whole chicken egg is equal to the arithmetic mean of its parts — the yolk, the white, and the shell".

Cartoonist — Uwe Oehler

Four different cartoon drawings

Moles on the shelf

After I introduce moles to my chemistry class, I set out a display on a shelf that students see when they enter the room. The display is titled: SEE AND TOUCH A MOLE. It consists of samples of preweighed molar masses of about four elements and four compounds.

Famous visitors

To try and get my classes to appreciate the contributions made by famous scientists to their field, I suggest that they invite several scientists (living or dead!) to address them, and the replies which they may like to add to the list.

Chemical stream puzzle

Ever notice how some element names contain within them the symbols for other elements? “Potassium”, for example, contains “Si”, silicon, plus about eight others. Well, now you’ve noticed it…and you’ll need to think this way to solve the following puzzle, for you must string elements together in a sort of chemical stream of consciousness.

What’s this?

Can you figure out the nomenclature riddle?

Invert without a mess

To invert a test tube (or bottle, etc.) filled with water into a beaker of water, place a piece of filter paper on top of the brim-full tube, wait until the water has soaked into the paper enough to hold it on, then invert the tube and insert it into the beaker at an angle slightly off-vertical. Once the tube mouth is under water, the paper will float off.

The US penny revealed

United States pennies have been minted in the past few years with the less expensive metal zinc as a center filler and the more expensive copper metal as an overall cover.

Celebrating decade of the 70s - Lab safety puzzle

This puzzle is a reprint from Chem 13 News from the 1970s. It was one of many safety articles by Nick Ozaruk, University of Waterloo, Waterloo Ontario. Shown is a sketch of a fictitious laboratory. It isn’t ours. However, there are conditions or actions that could result in accidents, some very serious. List the unsafe acts and/or conditions that you can spot in the drawing.

Cupcakes as oxygen molecules

Many students have difficulty in dealing with diatomic oxygen molecules when balancing equations in that they do not distinguish them from oxygen atoms.

Sodium Award winner

After every test, I post the Sodium Award winners — for those who got Na (an “A”)!

Claude Émile Jean-Baptiste Litre

One of the most memorable articles carried in Chem 13 News was Ken Woolner’s short literary hoax — a biography of Claude Émile Jean-Baptiste Litre.

Chem 13 News most memorable hoax

One of the most memorable articles we ever carried in Chem 13 News was Ken Woolner’s short biography of Claude Émile Jean-Baptiste Litre. We reprint it here, complete with introduction, illustrations and final Editors’ note as it appeared in our April 1978 issue.

Partial pencil pressure

It has recently been observed that some of the commonplace events and circumstances around the ordinary home are illustrations of the laws of science, and may be, in part, explained by them.

50 years ago we started something special

Since 1968, the University of Waterloo’s Chem 13 News magazine has provided a continuous resource to teachers of introductory chemistry worldwide. From its inception, Chem 13 News has played a lead role in developing passionate and concerned educators who inspire and groom the scientific leaders of tomorrow.

Celebrating 1968-78 decade

Editor’s note: This puzzle was created by Gerry Toogood who still challenges readers with his crostic puzzles today. Be warned, this 50-year old puzzle is much more difficult (in our opinion) than Gerry’s current day crostics.

A chemist’s phrase book

numerous chemist's phrases

Hamlet

a chemistry soliloquy

An idea to study corrosion: An overhead demonstration

Make an agar-agar gel by heating 300 mL of water to a boil. Stop heating. Stir into the water 2 g of powdered agar-agar. While the gel is still hot, have some Petri dishes ready. Place a straight nail and a bent nail in a Petri dish.

Dimethyl chicken wire

Fun cartoon from the 1960s

Complementary demonstrations Variations on egg in the bottle — the gas laws

JUST IN TIME FOR EASTER: A CLASSIC FROM OUR ARCHIVES (REPRINT APRIL 1993)

Atmospheric pressure will push a hard-boiled egg through the neck of a 1 L Erlenmeyer flask.

1958 Annual Exam from the Ontario Department of Education

From 1948-1967 in order to pass high school chemistry, your grade was based solely on the province-wide exam. What did Ontario high school chemistry students need to know 60 years ago? On the next two pages check out a scan of one of the original final exams. It is a booklet of four small pages. Students were not given a periodic table and hand-held (pocket) calculators would not be around for another decade.

Santa parent cartoon

Cute little Christmas cartoon but you have to know your elements...

Chemis-trees revisited

This page is currently under construction, please contact Jean Hein for more information.

Question and answers from the past

In the 1970s and ’80s Chem 13 News had a long-running question and answer series. The questions were numbered and printed in the magazine and readers were asked to help answer questions. This is a reprint of one question, which was answered by several readers.

Question and answers from the past

In the 1970s and ’80s Chem 13 News had a long-running question and answer series. The questions were numbered and printed in the magazine and readers were asked to help answer questions. This was before a Google Search. There were about 250 questions asked — most answered by several readers.

A chemistry class to begin the year’s work (reprint from 1980)

Has teaching chemistry changed in the last 35 years? This December 1980 article in Chem 13 News describes how a teacher begins his school year. We would be interested to hear readers’ reactions to this 35-year old approach to a chemistry class. It certainly sounds like guided inquiry was at work.

Chemistry: Its bond with the past

Organic chemistry is enough to drive one mad! It is like a tropical forest, filled with the most peculiar things, dense, endless, impossible to find one’s way out of, a place which one should avoid entering.

“Who is the antiquirk?” A chemical analogy

“Solving a Chemical Problem” is a laboratory exercise in Exercises and Experiments in Chemistry by Metcalfe Williams and Castka (1978). It is an exercise in the testing of unknown solutions in a systematic manner.

Have things changed in 25 years?

During the past thirty years, there has been little change in the reasons that college students fail.

Rules for solubility

Potassium, sodium and ammonium salts, Whatever they may be Can always be depended on For solubility.