FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE | September 11, 2014

American Association of Chemistry Teachers has launched; first of its kind in the US

WASHINGTON, Sept. 11, 2014 — The American Chemical Society (ACS), the world’s largest scientific society, has launched the American Association of Chemistry Teachers (AACT), the first organization of its kind in the U.S. The association is dedicated to improving chemistry education and providing specialized resources to more than 1 million K–12 chemistry and physical science teachers nationwide.

The AACT website, www.teachchemistry.org, is live, and interested teachers may sign up to become charter members or to receive email updates about the new organization.

Until now, chemistry has been the only scientific field without a national discipline-specific teachers’ association. AACT will provide the resources necessary to motivate and empower K–12 chemistry teachers as they seek to inspire the scientists and scientifically literate citizens of tomorrow.

Membership in the new organization is open to all who are interested in chemistry education. AACT has three goals: to serve as a trusted source of curricular and pedagogical resources for K–12 chemistry instruction, to provide opportunities for chemistry teachers to network with each other and the broader ACS community, and to disseminate effective teaching and learning practices at the K–12 levels.

The establishment of AACT comes at a critical time, as enrollment in high school chemistry classes is on the rise. And yet, only 35 percent of high school chemistry teachers have both a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and a certification in chemistry.

To help these teachers be better prepared for the challenges they face in the scientific classroom, AACT offers a slew of resources developed by ACS. These include an online periodical, lesson plans, webinars and workshops with Continuing Education units, and videos and other multimedia that will help teach chemistry concepts.

The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 161,000 members, ACS is the world’s largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

To automatically receive press releases from the American Chemical Society, contact newsroom@acs.org.

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Joan Coyle
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