With Chemistry, the Joy Is in the Doing

THE JOY OF CHEMISTRY: The Amazing Science of Familiar Things, by Cathy Cobb and Monty L. Fetterolf, Prometheus, 2005, 393 pages, $26 (ISBN 1–59102–231–;2)

Page quickly through The Joy of Chemistry and you'll notice immediately one of the many ways it's different from most other chemistry books. Each chapter begins with a quote from literature. Emerson, Pope, Verne, Alcott, Wilde, and others grace the pages. Does today's reader understand the assertion made by psychologist Carl Jung that the meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed? There was a time when being literate meant literacy in letters and in elements alike. No more.

That second type of literacy, scientific literacy, is in trouble today. American students don't pursue science careers the way their European or Asian peers do. The emphasis on science education that Sputnik catalyzed more than a generation ago has sputtered and wants for revitalization.

Schools today are locked into multiple-choice tests, and taking time for students to explore a science topic has teachers worried that too little time remains to cover the other content necessary for those tests. If the Benchmarks for Science Literacy guidelines set forth in the American Association for the Advancement of Science's Project 2061 were followed, rising sixth-graders would understand Jung's statement about the meeting of two personalities being like two chemical substances. But I'm confident that many sixth-graders have no such understanding.

So how do we get people more interested in science? One way is to experience the wonder of science, something that the department store chemistry set does pretty well. In The Joy of Chemistry, authors Cathy Cobb and Monty L. Fetterolf provide us with a shopping list and directions on how to make your own new and improved version of that chemistry set. And they have added three major items those chemistry sets never had: the theory, background, and application of the science.

Cobb is an instructor at Aiken Preparatory School and an adjunct professor at the University of South Carolina, Aiken. She's also the author of several other popular science books, including Magick, Mayhem, and Mavericks: The Spirited History of Physical Chemistry (C&EN, April 28, 2003, page 44). Fetterolf is a chemistry professor at USC Aiken.

The Joy of Chemistry may closely match the chemistry textbook you wish you had. There is a sense of magic in the demonstrations Cobb and Fetterolf provide, which are interwoven with applications. The standard chemistry topics are still included. You'll read about the atomic model, the periodic table, bonding, acids and bases, redox reactions, gas laws, kinetics, thermodynamics, and chemical equilibrium.

But the presentation of the material is different. The mole is included, but you won't find problems that ask you to make inane conversions, and there isn't a single problem on limiting reactants. You'll read about intermolecular attractions, but the application is an explanation of how flush toilets work. Kidneys and pickles are used to explain colligative properties. The knocking of a car engine is their case study for applied kinetics. This isn't typical for chemistry books.

The book also covers the various disciplines of chemistry. The Biochemistry chapter, for example, begins with the statement, What do plastics have to do with people? And aficionados of the forensic TV drama CSI will enjoy the Chemist as Analyst chapter. The journey into these areas of chemistry is short, but worth it. The demonstrations in these chapters allow you to get the acid out of aspirin, develop fingerprints, and distinguish blood from food coloring.

A book at this level isn't going to have a significant impact on the scientific literacy of the average sixth-grader, but it can help. Maybe parents will do these experiments with their children, or a high school teacher will use it as a supplement and the students will do the demonstrations in class. Maybe chemists will add some of these demonstrations to their repertoire when they speak at schools or to civic groups. Maybe this will be a gift to a budding scientist who, with a mentor, will work through the book at her kitchen table, her Joy of Chemistry set before her. Anyone reading this book will have a better understanding of chemistry than when they started.

One last thing. In the preface, Cobb and Fetterolf compare The Joy of Chemistry with The Joy of Cooking and The Joy of Sex. Their comparison has to do with the trepidation brought to cooking and sex in the era when those books were written, much like the current trepidation brought to chemistry. But there is another comparison. In both those books the joy is in the doing. So get your chemical shopping done, don your goggles and rubber gloves, and begin with a bang!

Myra Thayer left her job as a research chemist to instill the joy of chemistry in students. She is currently the science coordinator for the 165,000 students enrolled in Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia.