Dear VIPEr Colleagues,
I hope all is well. I was wondering if anyone has considered putting together a Napoleon's Buttons type book focused only
on inorganic/organometallic complexes? Do you think this is a good idea? I was trying to write my Top Ten Inorganic Compounds, which is quite difficult to do. I have included ferrocence, cisplatin, Vaska's complex, and etc. I wonder if this is something I could work on with my students. Have them write a two page paper on each compound giving some historical context and impact. For instance, I find ferrocene really interesting because it was used as an antiknocking agent in gasoline, and now some researchers are invesitigating ferrocene-derivatives for treating breast cancer. Thoughts on this idea?
Take Care,
SNC
Sibrina,
I think it's an awesome idea. Of course, to build out an actual book like Napoleon's Buttons would be the result of a labor of love over many, many years rather than a one-year student project. Great writing and great editing make a great book, and these are the sorts of things that don't come out of a weekend's assignment, but I could imagine many years of students crafting such a thing.
One of the things that makes Napoleon's Buttons so good is that they define their chapters on things that catch the general reader rather than specific compounds (e.g. "spice" rather than "cinnemaldehyde"). Some of the chapters really are about one species, but most are about a class of compounds. Metallocenes would be a great chapter, because you have the exciting early history, the polymerization catalysis, the unseemly lawsuit battles between chemical giants who stole an academic chemist's idea, to the more recent attempts to find cancer therapies with ferrocene again.
Vaska's complex could be expanded to include the Monsanto process (and more, I'm sure). Asymmetric hydrogenation catalysts (and all that they've been used for, esp. chiral drugs) might be another. Solid State/Materials could provide a wealth of chapters, from doped semiconductors to nano/buckey materials to....
Hey Scott,
Thanks for your note. Yep, this will take years to do. In my course this fall, the students will have to write a paper, focused on the chemistry of one specific element and it's applications. (Ex., Why is Au effective for treating arthritis?) I got this idea from Rachel Austin at Bates. If they are not interested in the "element paper," they could write an alternative paper for a "Napoleon's Buttons" inorganic resource. The nice thing is that Napoleon's Buttons is written for anyone to understand. So, I will tell the students to write the "Napoleon's Buttons" project for the freshman audience, I will see how this goes.
Sibrina,
You should definitley post the assignment and its assessment results (how did you grade the student papers? what was the course average grade? what were the papers' strengths and weaknesses?) as a VIPEr Learning Object!
Dear Joanne,
I will let you know how things go. There are a few students interested in doing this. Others have chosen other topics.
SNC
Sibrina Collins, PhD College of Wooster