Meetings & Events

Lehigh Valley ACS
Meetings and
Events

MEETING AND EVENT SCHEDULE

The section holds regular meetings about 8 times per academic year, September-November and January-May. There are also special events scheduled throughout the year such as celebrations around National Chemistry Week (incorporating Mole Day, October 23) and Chemists Celebrate Earth Week (incorporating Earth Day, April 22). Recurring meeting themes include: student poster session, high school teachers night and awards night. Family events typically take in local sports (LV Iron Pigs AAA baseball; LV Phantoms hockey) or sample local food/beverage emporia. Our summer picnic at Nockamixon State Park is another highlight of the year!

Meetings Calendar

November 2021

Monthly Section Meeting (Virtual Format)
“SLiThEr - Supporting Learning with
Interactive Teaching: a Hosted, Engaging Roundtable”
Speaker: Chip Nataro, Lafayette College
Thursday, November 18th / Time 7:00 pm
Online Zoom Link

The Interactive Online Network of Inorganic Chemists (IONiC) is a community of transformation dedicated to improving the teaching and learning of inorganic chemistry. When the pandemic reached the US, the community responded in a variety of ways to help each other make the adjustments we all faced in our classes. From how to Zoom to developing remote laboratory experiences, IONiC helped countless members get through the spring semester of 2020 offering students the best experience possible given the circumstances. As the summer continued and the shutdowns remained, the leadership of IONiC sought out new ways to keep the community engaged. This was the origin of what has become a biweekly series of presentations/discussions on any topic that might be of interest to the community. The first step was creating a name for this series. The chosen name was Supporting Learning with Interactive Teaching: A Hosted, Engaging Roundtable or SLiThEr, keeping with our snake motif and being able to spell things out with element symbols. Once that was decided upon, the format for the first SLiThEr was developed. These would be 20-30 presentations with time for Q&A after. We would have people sign up to prevent Zoom-bombing and we would record these to post on our YouTube channel. The first SLiThEr happened on July 7^th, 2020. It was by Kyle Grice at DePaul and focused on materials he created having to move his inorganic lab online. Since that time, we have hosted 26 additional SLiThErs with topics including alternative assessment, mental health, flipping the classroom, scaffolding oral exams and searching for a job at a PUI. The leadership of ‘Team SLiThEr’ now consists of 6 people, half of which are members of the IONiC leadership team. This presentation will cover background on the IONiC community, the development of the SLiThEr series and will provide a sneak peek into some of the interesting things we have learned along the way.

CONTACT: Lindsey Welch lawelch@cedarcrest.edu

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Our virtual September 2021 LVACS meeting featured a presentation by Lindsey Welch of Cedar Crest College and Fran Mayville of DeSales University describing the goals of a new ACS Innovative Project Grant entitled: “Creating a Community of Practice for Faculty Mentoring Undergraduate Research in the Lehigh Valley.” Area faculty are invited to ask questions and propose ideas for networking, collaboration and resource sharing to Lindsey and Fran.

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