1. COURSE ORIGINS
2. COURSE CATALOG DESCRIPTION
3. COURSE MATERIALS
4. INTERNET RESOURCES
5. SEARCHING THE INTERNET

1. COURSE ORIGINS

At that time, our approach to teaching chemistry as a science requirement to non-science majors was changing. We realized that the student-citizen required not only the scientific basics of chemistry. The applications of these chemical principles in their lives should be an integral content of the science requirement course. A pioneer in these improvements was Professor John W. Hill of the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. The first edition of his text "Chemistry for Changing Times" appeared in 1972 and played a major role in my introducing Chemistry 83 into our curriculum at Fairfield University. The course design introduced the fundamentals of atoms, molecules, nomenclature, chemical reactions and applies these fundamentals to the chemistry of the land, sea and air of our planet. Topics of value to these students include industrial chemistry, biochemistry, chemistry of energy, environmental chemistry, agricultural chemistry, household chemistry, cosmetic chemistry, chemistry of sports, chemotherapy, chemical forensics and the chemistry of medicine. That original format continues today when I am assigned to teach this course.

2. COURSE CATALOG DESCRIPTION

CH 83 Survey of Chemistry

3. COURSE MATERIALS

• "The Chemistry of Changing Times," John W. Hill and Doris K. Kolb, Prentice Hall, 9th edition, 2001 ISBN 0-13-087489-2

4. INTERNET RESOURCES

• C&EN Online, the full electronic edition of Chemical & Engineering News. This is the weekly News magazine of the American Chemical Society. Every issue has topics of interest to takers of this chemistry survey course. The following topics are often the subjects.

• ChemCenter -- The Electronic "Bookmark" For Chemistry. This site of the American Chemical Society is offered as a universal home page for chemistry-related information for all of society.

• Chemistry, the Tabloid This is published by the American Chemical Society for those interested in learning more about the chemical sciences.

• Health-Track The mission of Health-Track, supported by The Pew Charitable Trusts, is to help American families and communities identify and track the links between environmental hazards and illnesses and to provide researchers and public health officials with the necessary tools to prevent disease. A great public service from Pew!

• The Periodic Table An interactive periodic table that gives instant access to a variety of chemical information. Do take a look!

• Selected Classic Papers from the History of Chemistry. Carmen Giunta of Le Moyne College maintains this website. Much of the early developments in chemistry are here in the scientist's own words. A great website to visit!

• ChemGlobe. A user-friendly periodic table of elements including physical data, isotopes, and background information for each element.

• USDA Current Research Information System (CRIS). The US Department of Agriculture's (USDA) documentation and reporting system "for ongoing and recently completed research projects in agriculture, food and nutrition, and forestry."

• Gems and Precious Stones. This website contains numerous images for most minerals, gems, and precious stones.

• Wood's Hole Marine Biological Laboratory. This site on Cape Cod is responsible for much of our information about the ocean waters.

• Center for Coastal Studies.This center at Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) at the University of California, San Diego conducts research studies in the coastal environment in areas such as "waves, currents, and tides in near shore and estuarine waters; sediment transport by waves, winds, and rivers; fluid-sediment interactions; and marine archaeology."

• American Water Works Association. This site has useful information on water and the analysis of water.

• Fluoridation. A concise summary of the history of fluoridation from Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

• A Systematic review of water fluoridation An excellent update on fluoridation from the British Medical Journal.

• Editorial on fluoride from the British Medical journalThe editorial is titled "Fluoridation, fractures, and teeth.

• The medical paper that caused the above editorialThe title of the paper is "Community water fluoridation, bone mineral density, and fractures: prospective study of effects in older women."

• Fluorosis. A scientific paper from the Journal of the American Dental Association that discusses the possibility of too much fluoride.

• Acid Rain Home Page. Acid Rain site is provided by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

• Introduction to Atmospheric Chemistry.York University, Canada provides this excellent learning resource about atmospheric chemistry.

• Air Pollution References from MedlinePlus. Air Pollution references provided by U.S. National Library of Medicine, 8600 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD 20894. The National Library of Medicine provides much useful data to us via MedlinePlus. Investigate and bookmark this site not only for air pollution but for much other useful data and information.

• Envirnmental Protection Agency.This is the home page of EPA (Environmental Protection Agency.)

• Free On-line Searches. This site offers free on-line searches of the following databases as a public service.

 

 

Environmental Fate Database
Compilation of Ozone Depletion Potentials and Global Warming Potentials
On-line Log P (octanol-water partition coefficients) Database
TSCA Test Submissions Database (TSCATS)
Physical Properties Database.

• Toxnet files from the National Library of Medicine. If you need information about an environmental chemical you might find this site at NIH (National Institutes of Health) to be of use. Take a look so that you know what is there.

• Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. This National Laboratory, one of nine US Department of Energy multi-program national laboratories, conducts research concerning environmental science and technology.

• EPA Publications Search. A place to search for environmental documents.

• Interactive Health Ecology Access Links (IHEAL). The IHEAL Website offers links to over 600 electronic databases and other resources that fall within the environmental and health information fields.

• Health, Environment & Work This web site has many educational resources, answers to frequently asked questions, and many links to sites for Occupational and Environmental Health and Medicine.

• The Future Role of Pesticides in US Agriculture. This extensive 258-page report from National Academy Press is expert's consensus about the future.

• Environmental Chemistry Web Links . Some very useful environmental material from a course at Simon Fraser University in Canada.

• Index of Hazardous Chemicals. This contains descriptions, chemical properties, health effects, economics, and regulations on somehazardous chemicals.

• Environmental Mercury. The United States Geological Survey presents much useful information at this site.

• "The Science of Climate Change: Global and US Perspectives" The Executive Summary. Quality work from the Pew Foundation.

• The homepage of NIOSH, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). This site leads to information on environmental chemicals.

• The Secret History of Lead. National Public Radio does our country a service by posting this at their site. The more complete report is in the magazine Nation The Secret History of Lead, a Nation Special Report. Read these and you will weep for our environment!

• Love Canal. The Web site devoted to the environmental destruction of a neighborhood and the occupants in New York state.

• Environmental Health Center. Their purpose is to foster improved public understanding of significant health risks and challenges facing modern society.

• Review of Latex Allergy. This article in Journal of American Board of Family Practice (12(4):285-292, 999) reviews this problem that apparently affects about 5% of the population. Reading this may aid yourself, family and friends.

• Clean Energy Basics This website from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory is a good primer on renewable energy.

• Fossil Energy Website -- USDOE. This site serves as a gathering point for US Department of Energy [USDOE) materials related to fossil energy.

• PubSCIENCE. This database developed by the Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) allows users to search across abstracts and citations of multiple publishers in the physical sciences and other energy-related disciplines for free.

• Department of Energy (DOE) Technical Standards. The Website contains a great range of handbooks designed to bring a consensus of technical standards.

• Many Industrial Websites. Over 1500 sites are listed here.

• Chemistry and Industry. This news magazine provides useful information for the student interested in learning about the chemical industry.

• Chemical Week. This Web site of this leading news magazine of the chemical industry offers a variety of services and information that will give the student insight into the chemical industry.

• Soap and Detergent Association. Many household chemicals are discussed at this site.

• Soap and Detergent Chemistry. A useful summary of these useful chemicals.

• Stain Removal Guide. Some useful household stain removal information from an expert in detergent chemistry.

• FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. The United States Food and Drug Administration has posted much useful cosmetic information here.

• Australian Sports Drug Agency. The Australians take their sports very seriously and this site demonstrates this.

• Drugs in Sports Menu. This is one of the contents of the above Australian web site.

• Chemistry and Art. This site may contain Web references and is at the homepage of Professor John Elder, S.J. who teaches this course at Fairfield Univesity.

• Evidence: The True Witness. This is an elementary introduction to forensicsand put together by high school students.

• Chemistry of the New Nutrition This is my web page with many Internet references for my nutrition course at Fairfield University.

• Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology The Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology has been established to be an independent and objective source of credible information on agricultural biotechnology for the public, media and policymakers.

• Chemistry of the Human Body This is my web page with many Internet references for my Chemistry of the Human Body course at Fairfield University.

• Big Picture Book of Viruses. Most of what you should know about viruses. Great Site!

• The DNA Learning Center. The Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory offers this compendium of educational information.

• DrugDigest. A concise presentation of some prescription drugs.

• Medscape DrugInfo. A site to search for drug information.

• Vitamins and Minerals Against Disease. This report is of preventative medicine.

• Hugenet for Genomic Information. If you wish to stay current in our knowledge of the chemistry of the human genome this site at Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is a great web site.

• Human Genome Sequencing. This site at National Institutes of Health allows you to stay current in the chemical sequencing of the human genome.

• Medscape Homepage. This web site surveys the week in medicine and many reports relate to chemistry in medicine. You may register and receive these weekly reports that include the redirections to dozens of valuable web sites each week. If you have an interest is staying current in the chemistry of medicine this is an excellent site. Do take a look!

• Glucose. There is an epidemic of diabetes among young folk. You must learn the importance of knowing your blood serum fasting glucose level. Read about it here and If you do not know your fasting glucose find out! Many students are going to have health problems later in life if they do not act now!

• CDC Youth Tobacco Surveillance --- United States, 2000 Tobacco use is the single leading preventable cause of death in the United States, accounting for approximately 430,000 deaths each year. The prevalence of cigarette smoking nationwide among high school students increased during the 1990s, peaking during 1996--1997, then began a gradual decline. Approximately 80% of tobacco users initiate use before age 18 years. If the trend in early initiation of cigarette smoking continues, approximately 5 million children aged less than 18 years who are living today will die prematurely because they began to smoke cigarettes during adolescence. The economic costs associated with tobacco use ranges from $53 billion to $73 billion per year in medical expenses and $47 billion in lost productivity. Because of these health and economic consequences, CDC has recommended that states establish and maintain comprehensive tobacco-control programs to reduce tobacco use among youth.

6. SEARCHING THE INTERNET

The Scout Toolkit is a useful collection of online materials compiled by the Internet Scout Project to help you "surf smarter". Once a novel concept, there are now many commercial sites (listed below) available offering more comprehensive and continuously updated materials. Nonetheless, it is a good site to begin your use of search engines.

CHEMFARM is not intended to be as inclusive as some other sites. More often you will search for the information needed. This "Scout" site contains redirections to many search protocols and excellent advice for using such tools. If you are looking for simplicity, you will likely find Hotbot to be the most useful to you but Google is the first choice of most searchers. However, most of the information on the Web is not recoverable by any of these search engines! The following data is from a paper in Nature, July 8, 1999 but the data is in continual flux:
 

	SEARCH ENGINE		WEB PAGE COVERAGE
	Northern Light		16.0%
	Snap		15.5%
	Alta Vista		15.5%
	Hotbot		11.3%
	Microsoft		8.5%
	Infoseek		8.0%
	Google		7.8%
	Yahoo		7.4%
	Excite		5.6%
	Lycos		2.5%
	Euroseek		2.2%

(Additional information from this paper in Nature is available at www.wwwmetrics.com)

 Useful information for users of CHEMFARM may be better recoverable by using the redirections that I provide here for your use. Another option is to use a METASEARCH site called dogpile that searches many search engines and presents the results to you. Some other metasearch engines are metacrawler , metasearch, google, and mamma.. Lastly, if you find search engines to be interesting and wish to remain current you should visit and bookmark the searchenginewatch website and Search IQ. The techiques for searching the Web are continually improving. You might want to take a look at Simpli.com as an example of these changes.
In addition to search engines there are sites on the Web that do searching for you. Take a look at, if not try, FindArticles.com that searches some literature for you.

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This page of my Web Site is a work in progress. I welcome any comments, corrections or additions to this Web page. Thank you for your help.

John MacDonald,
Professor of Chemistry
Fairfield University
Fairfield CT 06430
203-254-4000, x2123
fax: 203-254-4034