UCSD-TV: Molecules for the Media

Attila E. Pavlath, former president of the American Chemical Society, in his President’s Message, January, 2001

Chemistry is sometimes misunderstood, as evidenced, for example, by advertisements for “chemical-free” products, but chemistry is central to all the sciences. An understanding of the chemical sciences is absolutely essential for understanding the environmental, medical and technological issues of our time.

Molecules for the Media is an educational series that seeks to enhance public awareness of advances in the chemical sciences. Topics include mechanisms of disease, drug design, nanotechnology and atmospheric aerosols.

Each Molecules for the Media workshop can be viewed in its entirety in streaming video. Additional resource materials, which are ideal for high school students and teachers, include background and supplemental reading materials, lesson ideas and links to animations.

Support for this project was provided by the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, UCSD’s Division of Physical Sciences and UCSD-TV.

Teachers and Students: Your feedback would be very helpful to us in planning future programs. Let us know how you are using these programs, how we can make them better and what topics you would like to see covered in future programs. Send your comments to Sherry Seethaler, Director of Education Outreach for UCSD's Division of Physical Sciences.

	“…Chemistry must be given deserved recognition for its overall beneficial effects on our lives. How many people know that the high efficiency of agriculture was made possible by development of artificial fertilizers through the Haber-Bosch process? Does the younger generation realize that their desktop and laptop computers would not exist without the development of semiconductors, silicon chips, or liquid crystals? Cures for diseases are frequently attributed to medical researchers and not to the chemists who developed the compounds. Penicillin, for example, would be a rare drug indeed if economic mass production had not been made possible by chemists and other scientists…” *Attila E. Pavlath, former president of the American Chemical Society, in his President’s Message, January, 2001* Chemistry is sometimes misunderstood, as evidenced, for example, by advertisements for “chemical-free” products, but chemistry is central to all the sciences. An understanding of the chemical sciences is absolutely essential for understanding the environmental, medical and technological issues of our time. Molecules for the Media is an educational series that seeks to enhance public awareness of advances in the chemical sciences. Topics include mechanisms of disease, drug design, nanotechnology and atmospheric aerosols. Each Molecules for the Media workshop can be viewed in its entirety in streaming video. Additional resource materials, which are ideal for high school students and teachers, include background and supplemental reading materials, lesson ideas and links to animations. Support for this project was provided by the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, UCSD’s Division of Physical Sciences and UCSD-TV. Teachers and Students: Your feedback would be very helpful to us in planning future programs. Let us know how you are using these programs, how we can make them better and what topics you would like to see covered in future programs. Send your comments to Sherry Seethaler, Director of Education Outreach for UCSD's Division of Physical Sciences. ©2010 Regents of the University of California. Terms and Conditions of Use.