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Ian R Gould  > igould@asu.edu CHM 234 : General Organic Chemistry II  > Spring 2012
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Interested in taking this class for honors credit?

There are TWO possible Honors projects for CHM 233, Fall 2011

Both of the projects are associated with Kino Jr. High School in Mesa, where my wife teaches 8th grade science. The main purpose of these projects is to help to build as many small connections between ASU and the students at Kino as we can, to help to persuade as many Kino kids as possible to consider going to College themselves. This doesn't work by just telling them, or running only one activity Each year we get involved in a variety of activities with Kino, including visits by our students to their school, visits by their students to ASU. This is just one more way to make a connection. It is also probably a bit more interesting than many typical Honors projects.

PROJECT NUMBER ONE. We need people who can act as mentors to 8th grade Kino Jr. High students who are preparing science fair projects that they hope to be able to take to the Arizona Science Fair. First they have to present at the Mesa fair, and if successful they can go on to the State competition. This is a critically important opportunity for the Kino kids. It lets them see the bigger world of school science and how they fit into it. You would be working with the most science motivated kids at Kino. I helped a couple of years ago and enjoyed every minute, these kids are a delight to work with, but there are too many this year for my wife to handle on her own and I don't have much time to help.

We REALLY need mentors for this as soon as possible, since they are starting this week, Jan 11th. To do this project you would have to commit to helping them after school at 3:30PM at least one day a week during the months of January and February. The competition is at the end of February, so by then your project would be completed.

Please let me know as soon as possible if you are interested in helping with this.

PROJECT NUMBER TWO. We are looking for honors students to participate in a mentoring activity with Kino Junior High School in Mesa. My wife teaches 8th grade science at Kino and she receives many interesting questions from her students. She doesn't have time to answer all of these in her classes, and so she wants YOU to help in answering these questions!

You will be provided with a question, you then prepare a short Powerpoint to explain the answer. You ALSO come up with a simple question related to the topic for the Kino student to answer (so that they do some work and only ask a question they are prepared to put some work into). We will record your short Powerpoint presentation (in the same way that my lectures are recorded) and put it on a special web site.

Click HERE to see what CHM 233 students did last semester

There isn't anybody that we have shown this website to who doesn't think that it is a good idea! You will need to complete your project before the end of the semester to be useful to the Junior High kids.

If you decide to participate, simply submit an honors contract, I will approve it and add you to an email list. I will then collect questions and then distribute the questions by email. It will take at least one month to accumulate enough questions, so if you do not hear anything soon, don't worry, I will not have forgotten about you. You pick a question on a first come, first served basis. Give me several of the questions that you are interested in order of preference, in case your first choice question is taken. If all of your questions are taken, then you can choose again or wait for the next batch of questions to be distributed. Once you have your question, you will prepare a short Powerpoint answer, email it to me for approval. After I have made any corrections you come into my office to record your answer. Recording is simple, it should only take ca, 10 minutes.

It is important that you keep your answers simple and short, remember that you are talking to Jr. High kids. The following are a few good examples that are at the right level and are a good length:

Too Many Cells
Water in a Vacuum
Making Seeds

Your presentation needs to have the name of the student on the first slide, and a question back to the student on the last slide.

To be useful to the Kino students, your presentation will need to be recorded before the end of the semester. The deadline for completing your project is FIRM and will be WEDNESDAY APRIL 25TH (Reading Day).