Welcome Home

The year was 1876.

As Dr. John William Draper delivered his inaugural address to the small collection of colleagues that composed the nascent American Chemical Society, he outlined a formative agenda. “The progress of science among us,” he said, “very largely depends upon two elements: first, on our educational establishments. Second, on our scientific societies.”

Today, we’re thrilled to advance that vision through the formal launch of AACT.

Through it, we aim to bring together teachers of chemistry from across the country and around the world to help them share ideas, connect with one another, and succeed in their classrooms and communities. To help us do that, our website—teachchemistry.org—contains teaching resources, multimedia, professional development opportunities, and the first issue of our brand new periodical about teaching chemistry in the K–12 classroom, Chemistry Solutions.

As staff, we’re so honored to have the opportunity to serve this community. We hope that you will play a lead role in helping us shape it by sharing your experiences, questions, and great ideas, as you did when you submitted hundreds of items for the AACT “best of” collection, which we’re proud to debut today. These lesson plans, labs, activities, and demos represent some of the best chemistry teaching resources in use today. In fact, we received so many excellent submissions, that we’re still processing them. Stay tuned as we add even more resources to this collection in the weeks to come.

Going forward, there will be many additional opportunities to share your voice—by submitting an article to Chemistry Solutions, hosting a webinar, or even writing a post for this very blog.

As you have questions or ideas that you want to share, please feel free to drop us a line anytime.

Welcome to your AACT! Welcome home.

Adam is the program director of AACT. He holds a BA in Chemistry & English from St. Mary's College of Maryland and an MBA from Georgetown University.