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Milwaukee Section - American Chemical Society the amalgamator |
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Milwaukee Section - American Chemical Society the amalgamator |
The Serious and Delirious Use
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Friday September 22, 2000 Smith Brothers Fish Shanty 100 North Franklin Port Washington, WI (see directions) |
DIRECTIONS |
| 6:00 PM | - Social Hour |
| 7:00 PM | - Dinner |
| 8:00 PM | - Program |
Buffet Dinner: (Prices include tax and gratuity)
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| Members/Guests | .... | $18.00 |
| Chemistry Students | .... | $9.00 |
This presentation will begin with illustrations of brief mentions of chemistry in films where you might not expect it like The Graduate; It's a Wonderful Life; 1776; and Bells on Their Toes. Movies which feature science will then be contrasted between: then (the past) and now (the present); the real and the impossible; drama and comedy; and similar scenes in multiple movies. Featured clips will be selected from such films as Apollo 13; Dante's Peak; Chain Reaction; It Happens Every Spring; The Man in the White Suit; and Smoke. Several live chemical demonstrations relative to the movie scenes will be interspersed with the videos
John Fortman is Professor and Associate Chair of Chemistry of Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, where he has taught all levels of freshman chemistry as well as senior inorganic chemistry for over 30 years. In 1998, he was appointed the Robert J. Kegerreis Distinguished Professor of Teaching.
Dr. Fortman received his B.S. from University of Dayton in 1961 and his Ph.D in physical inorganic chemistry from the University of Notre Dame in 1965 where he was a Shell Scholar for two years. He had a part time appointment at the Aerospace Research Labs at Wright-Patterson Air Force from 1966 to 1970 and was a visiting associate professor at Purdue in 1973-74. Dr. Fortman is a two time recipient of the outstanding teaching award of the College of Science and Mathematics, and the 1991 recipient of the WSU Presidential Award for Teaching. In 1993 he received the Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching and in 1994 he shared The College's Collaborative Teaching Award for his work in developing a new multi-discipline science sequence for elementary education majors. He is a 1998 recipient of the CMA "Responsible Care" Catalyst Award for outstanding educational interest which includes chemical demonstrations and teaching analogies.
With Dan Ketcha he does at least fifteen chemical demonstrations outreach programs reaching more than 7,500 high school or junior high students per year. With Rubin Battino he has produced three sets of videotapes which contain a total of ten hours of chemical demonstrations for use at middle schools through college levels. He has done demonstration workshops for teachers on pyrotechnics and on simple demonstrations using readily available and inexpensive materials. He is the author of a series of thirteen articles featuring pictorial analogies which began appearing in the January 1993 issue of the Journal of Chemical Education.
He has designed a one year course in chemistry for non-science majors which organizes principles around occurrence and use instead of vice-versa and incorporates extensive use of videotapes as well as demonstrations. The course has been cited as a model in the AAAS report on "The Liberal Art of Science" and is the subject of a featured article which appeared in the November, 1990 issue of The 2YC3 Distillate. John was a member of the General Chemistry Task Force of the ACS Division of the Chemical Education from 1991 to 1997. In the Fall of 1992 he began teaching an experimental offering for science majors of an alternative general chemistry sequence containing the core material identified by the General Chemistry Task Force but organized on the framework of his successful course for non-science students, starting with organic and biochemistry, moving to materials, and concluding with energy. The course is sometimes characterized as being taught inside-out, upside-down, and backwards. Dr. Fortman designed an applied science curriculum and severed as a master teacher in the WSU Summer Upward Bound Program for disadvantage high school students showing promise in science.
In addition to teaching chemistry courses, he now teachers the chemistry component of a physical science sequence for elementary education majors focusing on those topics appropriate for grade school children and modeling and hands-on activities. He has been an ACS member since 1962 and is currently Councilor for the Dayton Section and a member of the Local Section Activities Committee. He has given over 150 local section talks visiting 133 of the 188 speaking tours at least once.
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