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February 11, 2003

Two Chemistry Seminars set for March

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. - The Augustana College Chemistry Department and the Sioux Valley Chapter of the American Chemical Society are sponsoring two seminars in March.

Dr. Charles Garber from Structure Probe Inc., West Chester, Pa., speaks at 5:00 p.m. Saturday, March 1, at the Sioux Falls Brewing Company. His talk is titled, “Use of New Electron Optical Methods to Characterize Polymer Coatings.”

On Saturday, March 22, Dr. Al Hazari from the University of Tennessee presents “Chemistry in Comics” at 5:00 p.m. in Gilbert Science Center room 100 on the Augustana campus.

Both seminars are free and open to the public.

Garber was president of Structure Probe Inc. from 1978 to 1998. He served as a delegate to the White House Conference on Small Business in 1980, 1986, and 1995.

A newly emerging area of solid state analytical instrumentation, frequently called “surface analysis,” is finding wide applications in virtually all areas of the chemical industry. The four individual analytical techniques covered by the umbrella term “surface analysis” will be described and the pros and cons of each weighed.

Al Hazari is a native of Lebanon and has taught middle school and high school science, math, and chemistry in the United States and overseas. In 1991 he joined the University of Tennessee Chemistry Department as director of the undergraduate chemistry labs.

Just a humor is most entertaining when its theme fits the topic of conversation, so too comics that depict chemistry situations and/or materials are most effective as a teaching strategy when they reinforce a topic or concept students are currently studying. A variety of chemistry comics will be presented, and the learning situations into which they best fit will be discussed.

The American Chemical Society is one of the oldest and largest professional societies in the world and numbers about 163,000 chemists and chemical engineers. The ACS has a mission to make science more friendly and accessible to the public.