Guest blog post: AAAS Annual Meeting & the chemistry connection

The 2012 AAAS Annual meeting is taking place in Vancouver, Canada from February 16-20, 2012 #AAASMtg.  The AAAS contains members of the various scientific disciplines.  One of those is Chemistry.  

Last year was 2011, The International Year ofChemistry!  Throughout the whole year, the accomplishments of Chemists and the field of Chemistry were celebrated at events nationwide and worldwide.  The four themes of IYC 2011, Environment, Energy, Materials, and Health, one for each quarter, were showcased by events and talks. 

Scientists worldwide celebrated IYC 2011 and held events to teach the public about the importance of not just Chemistry, but all of the STEM related fields and the Natural Sciences.   The AAAS did their part by having posters and banners letting everyone who visited the meeting know what year it was.  There were IYC related activities worked into the meeting schedule.  

NESACS demo of Global Water Experiment at
Cape Cod Science Cafe event IYC Q2
Photo credit: J. Maclachlan

A special 5^th theme, the Global Water Experiment, took place worldwide as scientists took measurements of the bodies of water around them and submitted that data to the global database.  The biggest portion of the GWE was a measurement of pH values of the bodies of water.  Other activities involved determining the salinity of the bodies of water, making a water distillery to supply clean water from polluted water, and purifying dirty water to make it safe to drink.

Bassam Shakhashiri, 2012 President of the American Chemical Society
 celebrates IYC with *Science is Fun* demo, CT Valley Section.
Photo credit: G. Ruger

As a Chemist, I know how important all the sciences are to the world around us.  Having attended the last two AAAS meetings, I can see a great diversity in the fields that other scientists choose to work in and to study.  The AAAS does a great job in bringing all these fields together in one place and exposing the attendees to areas that they do not see in their regular work.  While most scientific conferences are focused on a narrow range of topics related directly to that field, the AAAS does a great job showcasing many different fields. 

We, George Ruger (@gruger04) and Jennifer Maclachlan (@pidgirl) will be unable to attend this year’s meeting.  We will be in attendance next year when the meeting is in Boston, Massachusetts.  And we will be bringing our own brand of Chemistry to the event.  See some of our links below.  The New England area has many colleges and businesses, so there will be a large cross section of the sciences represented by local companies and professionals.  We look forward to seeing many of you from out of town in attendance as well.   

ACS Denver Tweetup: Chemical & Engineering News write up on this event

Greater Boston Mass Spec Discussion Group Annual Family Picnic

CT Valley Section 100 year anniversary celebration

IYC 2011 Halloween Style with the Mid-Hudson ACS

  

Cape Cod Science Cafe Kids event-a real success

@pidgirl's best in blog: IYC2011 month by month

Pittcon 2011 Tweetup

ACS Leadership Institute Tweetup 2012

There are many things to do after the meeting as well.  We hope that you all had the chance to enjoy Alison’s @AC_at_work   Social Media Soiree in Vancouver.  We hope to see it again in Boston!!  And perhaps next year you can see how we do social media events ACS style!  We promise to pick a different night of the week.  We are no match for Alison, and we know it! -George Ruger

@pidgirl's #IYC2011 month by month best in blog & media coverage

@pidgirl's #IYC2011 month by month best in blog and media coverage 

Blog post: #ACSBoston IYC Preparation and Inspiration

January 2011-Media Coverage  News of the Week Kick-off of #IYC2011 including science cafe's on Cape Cod and my blog post Cape Cod Science Cafe

February 2011-Northeastern Section of the American Chemical Society (NESACS) Local Section Monthly Meeting where I got to meet Nancy Jackson, 2011 President of the American Chemical Society.

Her dinner talk on technology was inspiring and the spirit of her speech was certainly echoed by Jack at all of the #IYC2011 Cape Cod Science Cafes during his introductions of the mission of IYC and the vision of the sustainability of the chemical enterprise.





Not an Official IYC event but we sure discussed #IYC2011 at our February National Committee Meeting: Committee on Public Relations and Communications (CPRC)-first visit to the American Chemical Society Headquarters in DC (pictured below).

#pittcon Booth Duty: What kind of analyzers are those? Click to read all about it.

March 2011-#pittcon Leveraging Social Media

 Dancing Chemists at #ACSAnaheim (yes, I'm in the video: back row, long red skirt)

April 2011-Cape Cod Science Cafe

 I was an invited  speaker at Sparkle Training of the Local Section PR Chairs, ACS HQ, Washington, D.C.

 

May 2011-The Chemistry of Industrial Hygiene Reception
This was a particularly neat event: bringing together the fields of chemistry and industrial hygiene (like we do at PID Analyzers) by organizing an #IYC2011 event sponsored by the Northeastern Section of the American Chemical Society at the American Industrial Hygiene Conference and Exposition. I contacted governance from the local section: Portland American Chemical Society. Read more about it.

Hewitt, Brabham-Chair Portland LS, Maclachlan, Driscoll, Terrell-Chair-Elect Portland LS

June 2011-Hanover Day 


NESACS  reserved a table as a civic organization in order to introduce the denizens of the South Shore to the International Year of Chemistry.

July 2011-Told all my friends to watch "chemistry" Jeopardy!, 


Blogged about the IUPAC Congress Meeting

August 2011-Greater Boston Mass Spec Discussion Group Family Picnic

George totally hooked us up with the tye-dye lab coats

Chemistry Ambassadors at the family picnic. Attendees with kids were amazed and delighted that we provide hands on chemistry experiments for the kids. As if the bouncy house wasn't awesome enough...then add in some cool science, and yes, we had LN2!! Read more.

Here's what the press had to say about it.

I talked this symposium up on Twitter creating this Twitter event that earned lots o' re-tweets:
  Communicating Chemistry to the Public symposium
For sure we could have used a much bigger room for this event. The house was packed and there were constantly folks standing along the walls. Important also to note that this was a continuos session without a break and extremely well attended.
More info including speaker line-up etc about this awesome symposium here.

September 2011 CEN Blog: Twitter Takes Hold at #ACSDenver,

Here's my Facebook status after I spotted the Twitter Takes Hold at #ACSDenver:

Jennifer Maclachlan

http://cenblog.org/newscripts/2011/09/twitter-takes-hold-at-acsdenver/

I have arrived: I've been blogged about in Chemical & Engineering News!!

Twitter Takes Hold At #ACSDenver

cenblog.org

The Twitterati were out in full force at this year’s ACS fall national meeting it seems. So much so that yesterday, ACS Web specialist Chris McCarthy (@CMcC_ACS) tweeted: I did a little analysis. #ACSDenver was tweeted >3x as much as the hashtags for Anaheim and Boston were and the meeting isn’t eve...

 ·  · Share · September 2 at 7:09pm

• 
  

  
  
• • 
    

    Delete CommentMark as Spam

    George Ruger The story is great. However, the total number of participants were over 20. And what an awesome photographer!!
    

    September 3 at 12:37am ·  ·  1
  • 
    

    Jennifer Maclachlan ‎@George did you get any pics of Tweetup group 2 or was that when you were chasing the news team across the street? Can you send me your pics? From all of Denver?
    

    September 9 at 9:15pm · 

My #ACSDenver Tweetup blog post

October 2011-CAPE COD TIMES COLUMN on my Cape Cod Science Cafe, NESACS celebrates National Chemistry Week, 


I was an invited speaker at #SERMACS2011. I presented two separate presentations in the Social Media in Science Symposium. Here is the full speaker and topic line-up. 

#SERMACS2011 Social Media in Science Symposium presenters meet and greet luncheon. L to R: Kevin Majors, Ken Podraza, Thomas Devore, Laura Provan,Jennifer Maclachlan, A. Martin, F. Luna-Vera, Ashton T. Griffin, Barbara Reisner and Nathalie Herring

 — with  at The Tobacco Company Restaurant.

November 2011-I spent November planning for the IYC Q4 Cape Cod Science Cafe, getting presentations accepted for #ACSSanDiego and promoting the upcoming #pittcon Conferee Networking Discussion Sessions.

December 2011-CAPE COD TIMES COLUMN about Cape Cod Science Cafe celebrates Healthy Kids and Jack and I. 


SANDWICH ENTERPRISE Feature Story: Making Science Palatable for Kids

2011 was an amazing year to celebrate the achievements of chemistry via chemistry outreach and increasing the public perception of chemistry. Where do we go from here? We continue  the celebration of chemistry into 2012!