Atkins's What is Chemistry: the role of electrons in determining the atom's various liasons

A complete cloud layer of electrons imparts energy advantages to atoms.  Atoms with very few electrons in the outermost layer may shed them to form cations and atoms with many electrons in the outermost layer will tend to grab a few more from another atom to form anions.  Atoms which want more electrons can share them.  The word ion is Greek for going while the prefixes an and cat are Greek for up and down, referring to the opposing responses of opposite charge particles to an electric field.  Whenever I introduce the terms anion and cation to my students, I always follow it with "Don't ask me where those words came from.."  Now, I know.

First chapter of Atkins' "What is Chemistry" published in late 2013

When I saw this book featured in the book section of C&E News, my first thought was, "Atkins is still writing!"  I am familiar with Atkins because he authored the Physical Chemistry textbook I used as a student.  I still use his book, as a matter of fact, whenever I need to review principles of quantum chemistry and thermodynamics.  Either he has become a much better writer but, more likely, I have become a better reader with a better foundation.  I much appreciate the precise way he explains chemistry concepts.  For instance, it was such a profound moment when I read his molecular definitions of heat and work.  I am sure i have read this before but only now am I appreciative of this precise way of viewing things emphasizing the particle and force basis of everything that we observe at the macroscopic level.

In this first chapter, he repeats for me what I have always emphasized to students as a basis for why numeracy or quantitative literacy is so important in studying chemistry and science.  How else can you observe subtle changes in matter if you cannot measure properties in precise, quantitative ways?!?  He also gives a prelude of what I believe is the beauty of understanding chemistry, the physics behind it!  I knew I was on the right track when I decided to major in physics as an undergraduate and take on chemistry as a graduate student even though Physics, especially Quantum Mechanics and quantum electrodynamics gave me a headache i still feel coming on whenever i tackle these challenging concepts.

More later as I continue to read...i think i chose a good first book to start off the literary portion of my sabbatical.

Excited with a bit of anxiety

This coming year I will dedicate to a year of mental, intellectual, and physical renewal and rejuvenation, thanks to my District awarding me a full year sabbatical.

My full year project involves many small projects involving curriculum and content knowledge development anchored by a big lab curriculum update for three of our introductory courses.

The project officially started in the beginning of May 2014 when prepared and OCR'd all the electronic pdf copies of the three lab manuals.  Since then, I have devoted 3-4 hours a week beginning the process of cleaning up the word files and refitting and reformatting all the illustrations, and noting in each section the revisions I need to make.  I have also started an Excel spreadsheet detailing all the changes that I can then hand out to other instructors as a summary of revisions so they are aware when they start using the new editions in Fall 2015.  To date, I have completed this first phase of the project for close to 4 out of the 10 units in the first manual.  It has been sometimes tedious and excruciating editing work but it would bear fruit later on as it makes it easier for the program hereon to make revisions now that they will all be on editable, electronic forms.

I have also met with one of the biology instructors and talked to her about my smaller project involving developing questions for our allied intro chem class that involve actual processes and language they use in the physiology class for which most of my students are taking the 30A class as a prerequisite.  I have obtained copies of the anatomy and physiology lab manuals and Barbara will be letting me borrow a microbiology some time in the fall.

I have gathered several electronic versions of articles for reading and have downloaded 5 of the books from my reading list of 20 or so books for content development.

One one other small project i have is doing some SLO process research.  I have not started this yet except to download some relevant articles regarding the SLO process in other schools.

In addition, I have a growing list of other to do things that i want to use my sabbatical time off to do.  Quite optimistic in my part but It is always good to have a list!


That is it for now!