Midway through his newly published book, Neil Garg poses a serious scientific question to his reader.
Whats a chemical in coffee that adults like so much?
The question is scrawled in chunky cartoon letters inside the childrens coloring book he created. An answer awaits on the opposite page: caffeine, a stimulant, its molecular structure rendered in black and white.
Garg, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry, said he was inspired to write and self-publish The Organic Coloring Book with the help of his two young daughters. Garg released the kid-friendly book April 22, hoping it would inspire children to love organic chemistry as much as he does.
When his younger daughter Kaylie was 4 years old, she began questioning her parents incessantly about the chemicals served in her food, Garg said.
Kaylie had a fear of chemicals, said Garg, who is also a faculty-in-residence at De Neve Gardenia and Holly. She was really skeptical.
So, Garg and his wife began teaching Kaylie that everything around her was filled with chemicals. These important substances, such as cyanidins and beta-carotene, made her blueberries blue and her carrots orange, Garg would tell his daughter. Eventually, he said, chemical naming became a game around his house. Kaylies older sister, Elaina, also joined in on the fun.
The game of chemistry soon reacted with his teaching career to produce the coloring book idea.
The word organic has a lot of definitions these days, Garg said. For example, organic can mean minimal use of pesticides. (But) to an organic chemist, the definition is very different: molecules made up of carbon and hydrogen atoms.
Kaylie and Elaina helped Garg select the molecules for the book. Then he asked a graphic artist to create a little character that would follow the reader on every page of the learning journey: Cheesy, a cartoon mouse.
Emma Baker-Tripp and Joyann Barber, graduate students in Gargs research lab, pitched in by constructing and optimizing the chemical structures used for the book. They made sure every molecules atoms and bonds were visible using the computer programs Spartan and CYLview, said Baker-Tripp, a graduate student in chemistry.
When the book was finally ready to publish, Garg gave away more than 100 free copies to the UCLA Krieger Center and Warren Avenue Elementary School. The children in his daughters fourth-grade class helped distribute some of these copies to their kindergartener friends, he added.
This past weekend, the family gave away more copies at a school event called the Warner Science Slam.
Everybodys been super positive about it, Garg said. Kids love to color; theyll color anything.
Earlier this week, Garg accepted the Royal Society of Chemistry Higher Education Teaching Award for his accomplishments in popularizing organic chemistry and innovating chemical education, according to the societys website. Garg has received multiple awards throughout his teaching career, including recognition for his program Biology and Chemistry Online Notes, an online organic chemistry learning system now used in curricula across multiple states.
[Related: Reel Life: Neil Garg]
Garg said he now hopes local museums or the UCLA Store hear about his coloring book and will be open to distributing it. Some of his students are interested in penning a second volume, he added.
I think theres been a need in general to have research programs give back to the community, Garg said.
Originally posted here:
Professor Neil Garg publishes kid-friendly organic chemistry book - Daily Bruin
- ONS t-shirts from Zazzle [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: April 6th, 2010]
- Scientists Embrace Openness Article in Science Careers [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: April 12th, 2010]
- ONS Books Wiki [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: April 20th, 2010]
- Reaction Attempts Book Edition 1 and UsefulChem Archive [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: April 28th, 2010]
- NMR integration web service expanded [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: May 1st, 2010]
- The Synaptic Leap Experiments on Reaction Attempts [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: May 3rd, 2010]
- ChemSpider SyntheticPages [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: May 4th, 2010]
- The Scientist Article on Electronic Lab Notebooks [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: May 7th, 2010]
- OpenSciNY Open Notebook Science Talk [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: May 17th, 2010]
- Setac Europe 2010: ‘It’ll all come out in the wash’ [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: June 3rd, 2010]
- ASMS: Forget Vioxx, eat chocolate? [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: June 3rd, 2010]
- Smoking could be good for you – if you get the message [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: June 3rd, 2010]
- Chemistry World's round-up of money and molecules [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: June 3rd, 2010]
- ASMS: Anthrax attacks [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: June 3rd, 2010]
- This week on Chemistry World… [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: June 3rd, 2010]
- Use of ONS to protect Open Research: the case of the Ugi approach to Praziquantel [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: June 3rd, 2010]
- IGERT NSF panel on Digital Science [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: June 8th, 2010]
- Reaction Attempts Explorer [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: June 25th, 2010]
- Methanol Solubility Prediction Model 4 for Ugi reactions in the literature [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: July 8th, 2010]
- Secrecy in Astronomy and the Open Science Ratchet [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: July 12th, 2010]
- Resveratrol Thesis on Reaction Attempts [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: July 22nd, 2010]
- General Transparent Solubility Prediction using Abraham Descriptors [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: July 25th, 2010]
- Berkeley Open Science Summit 2010 Notes [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: August 2nd, 2010]
- The Reaction Attempts Solvent Selector [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: August 8th, 2010]
- Green Solvent Metric on Solvent Predictor [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: August 17th, 2010]
- ChemTaverna Workflows of ONS Web Services now on MyExperiment [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: October 11th, 2010]
- Open Notebook Science in Drug Discovery at Opal Event [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: October 11th, 2010]
- Cheminfo Retrieval Classes 1 and 2 in 2010 [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: October 11th, 2010]
- The Meaning of Data panel at a class on the Rhetoric of Science [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: October 11th, 2010]
- Dynamic links to private tagged Mendeley collections [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: October 16th, 2010]
- Elizabeth Brown's guest lecture for ChemInfo Retrieval [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: November 7th, 2010]
- Nanoinformatics 2010 Conference Report [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: November 7th, 2010]
- Dana Vanderwall on Cheminformatics at Drexel [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 11th, 2010]
- Mirza PhD defense on the Ugi reaction for anti-malarial screening [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 13th, 2010]
- Visualizing Social Networks in Open Notebooks [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 20th, 2010]
- Chemical Information Validation Results from Fall 2010 [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: January 12th, 2011]
- Science Online 2011 Thoughts [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: January 22nd, 2011]
- The Spectral Game with ChemDoodle [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: February 14th, 2011]
- Predicting temperature-dependent solubility for solvent selection [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: February 14th, 2011]
- Alfa Aesar melting point data now openly available [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: February 22nd, 2011]
- ONS Solubility Challenge Book cited in a Langmuir nanotechnology paper [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: February 27th, 2011]
- Validating Melting Point Data from Alfa Aesar, EPI and MDPI [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: March 6th, 2011]
- Open modeling of melting point data [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: March 23rd, 2011]
- Towards the automated discovery of useful solubility applications [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: March 29th, 2011]
- ACS and ACRL presentations on web services and trust in science [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: April 10th, 2011]
- Collaboration using Open Notebook Science in Academia book chapter [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: May 8th, 2011]
- Evan Curtin is the May 2011 RSC ONS Challenge Winner [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: May 8th, 2011]
- Breast Cancer Coalition talk on ONS and Taxol solubility [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: May 15th, 2011]
- La Science par Cahier de Laboratoire Ouvert à l'Acfas [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: May 15th, 2011]
- More Open Melting Points from EPI and other sources: on the path to ultimate curation [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: May 29th, 2011]
- More on 4-benzyltoluene and the impact of melting point data curation and transparency [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: June 12th, 2011]
- The quest to determine the melting point of 4-benzyltoluene [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: June 12th, 2011]
- Open Melting Points on iPhone via MMDS [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: June 12th, 2011]
- My talk at SLA on Trust in Science and Open Melting Point Collections [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: June 19th, 2011]
- Live Tweeting Haumea: the Open Science Ratchet at work? [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: June 19th, 2011]
- Google Apps Scripts for an intuitive interface to organic chemistry Open Notebooks [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: June 19th, 2011]
- The 4-benzyltoluene melting point twist [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: June 26th, 2011]
- Open Notebook Science Talk at HUBbub 2011 [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: July 3rd, 2011]
- Practical Tips on using Google Apps Scripts for Chemistry Applications [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: July 17th, 2011]
- Burberry Acoustic - 'Chemistry' by One Night Only for Vogue Fashion Night Out [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: July 23rd, 2011]
- Rapid analysis of melting point trends and models using Google Apps Scripts [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: July 24th, 2011]
- Open Melting Point Collection Book Edition 1 [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: August 14th, 2011]
- Google Apps Scripts Workshop at Drexel University [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: August 21st, 2011]
- Patrick Ndungu talk at Drexel on Nanotechnology [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: August 21st, 2011]
- MiniSymposium Bradley Lab 2011 [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: October 9th, 2011]
- Chemistry [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: October 10th, 2011]
- Interpol - Rest My Chemistry [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: October 10th, 2011]
- Queens Of The Stone Age - Better Living Through Chemistry [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: October 12th, 2011]
- Greatest Chemistry Discoveries - Video [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: October 13th, 2011]
- Butterfingers - The Chemistry - Video [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: October 13th, 2011]
- Lec 1 Introduction to Chemistry [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: October 14th, 2011]
- KATNISS AND PEETA: Chemistry Screen Test using the cave scene from The Hunger Games - Video [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: October 15th, 2011]
- The Smiths - Live on Data Run c. 1984, a British TV Program - Video [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: October 15th, 2011]
- Organic Chemistry reactions - 7 clues from Obi Wan - Video [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: October 15th, 2011]
- CHEMISTRY Period Live Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood 4 OP - Video [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: October 16th, 2011]
- Rush - Chemistry - Video [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: October 16th, 2011]
- The Office: Jim and Pam - Video [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: October 17th, 2011]
- Chemistry 1A - Lecture 3 - Video [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: October 19th, 2011]
- Chemical Party - Video [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: October 19th, 2011]
- Shiny Toy Guns-Chemistry of a Car Crash (with lyrics) - Video [Last Updated On: August 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: October 21st, 2011]