Every year about this time in the semester when I teach General Chemistry I, I realize that one of the  significant obstacles in chemistry for my students is their ability to read and interpret problems - they get hung up on the translation of words.  I'd really like to find more examples of word problems that don't require specific chemical knowledge but do require this translation (and involve things like unit conversion and percentages). We develop a problem solving method in class, but I feel like working with this sort of problem would be really beneficial.

I was hopeful to seek some input/advice for everyone. 

Dear Colleagues,

I hope all is well. We know that the radii generally decrease with increasing atomic number from La to Lu. However, there are two exceptions to this trend, namely Eu and Yb. Why this exception? Is it an issue of half-filled and filled f subshells? Eu [Xe]6s24f7 and Yb [Xe]6s24f14. What are your thoughts? I know very little about the lanthanides....

I was going through some links this morning and ran across this one for English Communication for Science.
http://www.nature.com/scitable/ebooks/english-communication-for-scienti…

Although it's meant more for non-native speakers, I thought it was a nice resource for my students. Does anyone else have any favorite references for communicating science to different audiences?

Dear Colleagues,

Dear Colleagues,