Teach Your Children Plastics.The surest way to alleviate the chemo-phobia that afflicts a large part of the public is through early education. By chemo-phobia I mean the predisposition predisposition /pre·dis·po·si·tion/ (-dis-po-zish´un) a latent susceptibility to disease that may be activated under certain conditions. pre·dis·po·si·tion n. 1. to believe any scare story about hazards to health or the environment caused by the chemical industry or its products. Of course, those include plastics. The American Plastics Council The American Plastics Council (APC) is a major trade association for the U.S. plastics industry. Through a variety of outreach efforts, APC works to promote the benefits of plastics and the plastics industry. (APC (1) (American Power Conversion Corporation, West Kingston, RI, www.apcc.com) The leading manufacturer of UPS systems and surge suppressors, founded in 1981 by Rodger Dowdell, Neil Rasmussen and Emanual Landsman, three electronic power engineers who had worked at MIT. ) in Arlington, Va., has taken positive steps to address this problem. Four and a half years ago, APC helped develop and distribute a free education kit, "Hands On Plastics," based on content written by the National Middle Level Science Teachers Association. The kit is already used in more than 25,000 middle schools across the country. Just last month, APC took the lead in putting the NMLSTA NMLSTA National Middle Level Science Teachers Association materials on line at www.HandsOnPlastics.com. Take a look. It's all free and easily downloadable. There is background for teachers and students on the history, structure, uses, and characteristics of polymers. There are also a number of suggested activities. APC plans to expand the website to include materials for elementary and high schools, and for students looking for Looking for In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. help with science.projects. Speaking of school projects, I got an e-mail from an eighth grader in California who was working on a History Day project about plastics. He had seen my interview on the History Channel television program, "Modern Marvels Modern Marvels is a documentary television series on The History Channel that answers the question of how many things in the modern world are possible, and where they came from. : Plastics." He wanted to know more about how plastics helped win the Second World War. I was glad to help. My reward was a message informing me that he and his partner won the junior group prize at the county level, and they would be competing this month for the state prize. He wrote: "The judges really liked our Plastic topic and research, and we made our [project display] board out of Plexiglas." |
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