Extreme Tour, Blog Highlight NCW 2005

American Chemical Society President William F. Carroll will lead staff and members on an Extreme Tour of 15 cities and keep a blog as part of this year's National Chemistry Week, which will be held from Oct.16 to 22.

Carroll plans to visit 15 local sections over 10 days and travel more than 12,000 miles on a madcap journey to participate in NCW events and raise money for Project SEED. He's also promised to shave his head, dye his hair, or play air guitar at the ACS national meeting in Atlanta in exchange for large donations to Project SEED. His blog (or Weblog, an Internet diary usually arranged in reverse chronological order) at chemistry.org/extremencwtour will chronicle the trek, which will range from San Juan, P.R., to Buffalo, N.Y., to Los Angeles.

NCW is the society's largest annual event. Nearly every local section and more than 10,000 volunteers are expected to participate in community outreach and education activities that highlight the importance of chemistry and the 2005 theme, The Joy of Toys. Typical events include talks, demonstrations, museum exhibitions, and college visits.

Students will participate in two popular NCW contests: a poster contest for grades K-12 and Chemvention, which challenges student affiliate chapters to create a toy that teaches a concept of chemistry.

To celebrate NCW, ACS Publications is providing free access to the full text of the top three most accessed articles from each ACS journal until Oct. 23. This content will be available at pubs.acs.org/ncw beginning on Oct. 14.