Leading Together, Office of Community Activities

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	Leading Together
	The Quarterly Newsletter for ACS Local Section Leaders
	Spring 2008

Chair's Comment
Committee on Community Activities (CCA)
Community Outreach Programs: The Benefits are Endless!

Community outreach programs provide more than just opportunities for ACS members and chemistry enthusiasts to plan activities in their communities.

Although Chemists Celebrate Earth Day (CCED) is an informal education program, it provides educators with an opportunity to involve students in community service. It also provides an excellent opportunity to foster service-learning.

Service-learning combines service and learning objectives. The intent is for the activity to change both the recipient and the provider of the service. This is accomplished by combining service tasks with structured opportunities that link the task to self-reflection, self-discovery, and the acquisition and comprehension of values, skills, and knowledge content. For example a CCED service-learning activity might involve monitoring a stream or local waterway, analyzing the results and presenting them to the community.

ACS local sections, Student Affiliate Chapters, and divisions are encouraged to take part in the celebration, particularly the annual community event. In addition, hands-on activities have been developed for CCED celebrations, and it is hoped that ACS members, chemical educators, and chemistry enthusiasts will use them to illustrate the positive role that chemistry plays in the world.

Every year, ACS highlights one of four general topics (water, air, plants/soil, or recycling) and chooses a specific “theme name” under the topic to focus the CCED celebration.

For this water-focused year, the CCED theme is “Steaming Chemistry”. Some of the activities that you can coordinate are listed below:

participate in the K–12 illustrated haiku contest and share haikus with the community;

collect and analyze water samples and work with local groups to report and evaluate results;

create, monitor, and maintain an aquarium with younger children;

monitor the school pool and contribute to its maintenance;

bring chemistry to a Global Youth Service Day celebration on April 25–28, 2008;

learn about recycling and start program on campus;

present science fair results to the general public;

participate in existing Earth Day fairs;

Adopt-A-Stream or river, study water quality, and share results with community; and

clean up a stream or river, evaluate sources of trash, and share results with the community.

The ACS Office of Community Activities (OCA) also offers resources for coordinators, teachers, and the public, including the Community Outreach Manual—Guaranteed to Succeed, Celebrating Chemistry, and book and electronic resource lists. These resources are designed to help community outreach coordinators communicate the CCED message and to allow volunteers to carry out their celebrations and events. Materials are also translated into Spanish and are available at www.acs.org/kids.

Finally, I would like to thank you and recognize all the excellent efforts that the local section coordinators are doing during CCED and National Chemistry Week (NCW) celebrations and encourage all members to honor their contributions to the positive image of chemistry. It is gratifying to know that the Committee on Community Activities and OCA are the positive force behind CCED and NCW (two of the many recognized and popular programs of the Society).

Good luck and best wishes on a successful year filled with outstanding community outreach activities and programming within your local section!

Ingrid Montes
Chair, ACS Committee on Community Activities