How do we build chemistry classrooms where more students can thrive? In this bonus BCCE Community Conversation preview, Melissa talks with Matt Mayo about neurodiversity in chemistry education. They discuss why every student experiences learning differently, how understanding those differences can make us better teachers and colleagues, and why creating more accessible learning environments benefits far more people than we might expect. It’s a thoughtful conversation about curiosity, empathy, and what it means to teach the whole student.

Important Links

• Submit a Question for Community Conversations
• bcce.divched.org/2026
• YouTube.com/@chemforyourlife
• chemforyourlife.com

• 0:00 – Introducing the Community Conversation on neurodiversity
• 2:40 – Meet Matt Mayo and why this topic matters to him
• 6:10 – What the BCCE session will explore: students and faculty
• 11:00 – Why more educators are thinking differently about neurodiversity
• 14:00 – Melissa’s ADHD journey and designing courses that help everyone
• 18:30 – Questions to bring back to your own teaching community
• 19:10 – Universal Design for Learning and meeting students where they are
• 24:00 – Why awareness is the best place to start
• 25:30 – ADHD “superpowers” and different ways of thinking
• 28:00 – Looking ahead to the Community Conversation at BCCE

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Hairspray seems simple… until you actually stop and think about it. How does it come out as a fine mist? Why doesn’t it dry up inside the can? How can it hold your hair in place without acting like glue? This week we’re unpacking the surprisingly clever chemistry behind one of the most common products in our homes—and discovering it’s far more complicated than either of us expected.

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Timestamps

• 0:00 – A question inspired by our forensics episode: what is hairspray?
• 4:40 – The three ingredients inside a can of hairspray
• 10:40 – How the propellant turns liquid into a fine aerosol spray
• 18:30 – How polymers create an invisible “hairnet”
• 29:00 – Why designing hairspray is harder than you might expect
• 36:20 – How hairspray compares to gel and mousse
• 45:50 – Fun categories: movies, cast iron, and things that turned out to be more complicated than expected

References from the Episode:

Thanks to our monthly supporters
Sara Hull
Dog Day Dan
Bri .
Summer Alden
Amanda Raymond
Kyle McCray
Justine
Ash
Vince W
Julie S.
Heather Ragusa
Autoclave
Dorien VD
Scott Beyer
Jessie Reder
J0HNTR0Y
Cullyn R
Erica Bee
Elizabeth P
Rachel Reina
Letila
Katrina Barnum-Huckins
Suzanne Phillips
Venus Rebholz
Jacob Taber
Brian Kimball
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Chris Skupien
Chelsea B
Avishai Barnoy
Hunter Reardon

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Great teaching doesn’t happen in isolation—it happens in community. In this bonus BCCE Community Conversation preview, Melissa talks with chemistry educator Dr. Joanne Stewart about communities of practice: groups of educators who come together to share ideas, solve problems, and help one another grow. They explore why teaching is hard to improve on your own, how these communities support both faculty and students, and why meaningful change in chemistry education depends on building relationships, not just sharing resources.

Important Links

• Submit a Question for Community Conversations
• bcce.divched.org/2026
• YouTube.com/@chemforyourlife
• chemforyourlife.com

• 0:00 – Introducing the BCCE Community Conversation series
• 2:40 – Meet Joanne Stewart and her work in chemistry education
• 5:10 – What is a community of practice?
• 8:20 – How educators can get involved (even as a “lurker”)
• 11:50 – Sharing teaching resources and learning from one another
• 15:30 – Building a “community of communities” in chemistry
• 18:50 – What this year’s Community Conversation will explore
• 23:50 – Why lasting educational change requires strong networks
• 29:20 – BCCE events, communities to explore, and final invitations

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What happens when some listeners challenge one of our past episodes? This week we’re revisiting our silicone episodes after several listeners pointed us toward new research. Along the way we answer questions about mosquito wristbands, waterproof mascara, stubborn adhesives, and whether amino acids may have formed on the early Earth after all. It’s an Ask a Chemist episode full of updates, follow-ups, and a reminder that science is always a work in progress.

Check out our website at chemforyourlife.com

Watch our episodes on YouTube

Find us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook @ChemForYourLife

Timestamps

• 0:00 – Revisiting our silicone episodes after new research
• 2:00 – Does silicone really leach into food, and should we be worried?
• 10:30 – What we know (and don’t know) about silicone safety
• 17:30 – Do mosquito patches and wristbands actually work?
• 23:30 – How does waterproof mascara stay waterproof?
• 27:20 – A chemistry detour: removing paint and stubborn adhesives
• 30:20 – The Miller–Urey experiment and the origin of amino acids
• 33:20 – Wrap-up + send us your chemistry questions

References from the Episode:

Thanks to our monthly supporters
Sara Hull
Dog Day Dan
Bri .
Summer Alden
Amanda Raymond
Kyle McCray
Justine
Ash
Vince W
Julie S.
Heather Ragusa
Autoclave
Dorien VD
Scott Beyer
Jessie Reder
J0HNTR0Y
Cullyn R
Erica Bee
Elizabeth P
Rachel Reina
Letila
Katrina Barnum-Huckins
Suzanne Phillips
Venus Rebholz
Jacob Taber
Brian Kimball
Kristina Gotfredsen
Timothy Parker
Steven Boyles
Chris Skupien
Chelsea B
Avishai Barnoy
Hunter Reardon

Check out our website at chemforyourlife.com

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What if chemistry classes were organized around real-world problems instead of chapters in a textbook?In this bonus BCCE Community Conversation preview, Melissa talks with Vicente Talanquer about helping students think like chemists rather than simply memorize chemistry. They explore why authentic, real-world problems can transform learning, how instructors can make meaningful changes without rewriting an entire course, and why teaching chemistry is about developing a way of thinking—not just delivering content.

Important Links

• Submit a Question for Community Conversations
• bcce.divched.org/2026
• YouTube.com/@chemforyourlife
• chemforyourlife.com

More on Chemical Thinking Curriculum: https://sites.google.com/site/chemicalthinking/

General Chemistry - CLUE textbook & activities: https://www.chemistry.msu.edu/clue/general-chemistry.aspx

Organic Chemistry OCLUE textbook & activities: https://www.chemistry.msu.edu/clue/organic-chemistry.aspx

Time Stamps

• 0:00 – Introducing the Community Conversation series
• 2:40 – Meet Vicente Talanquer and this year’s discussion topic
• 4:10 – What does “authentic phenomena” actually mean?
• 7:40 – Memorization vs. meaningful understanding
• 12:10 – The two big questions guiding the Community Conversation
• 16:25 – What an authentically engaged chemistry classroom looks like
• 21:40 – Where should instructors begin making changes?
• 24:30 – Formative vs. summative assessment
• 26:50 – Free teaching resources and curriculum examples
• 30:50 – Why Vicente is excited about this year’s BCCE conversations

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There are a lot more ways to reveal a fingerprint than the black powder you see on TV.In this second part of our forensic chemistry series with Nicki Stewart, we explore the surprising chemistry behind fingerprints. From powders and iodine vapor to super glue fumes and chemical reactions, we break down how forensic scientists reveal invisible fingerprints—and why choosing the right method depends entirely on the surface, the chemistry, and the evidence they’re trying to preserve.

Check out our website at chemforyourlife.com

Watch our episodes on YouTube

Find us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook @ChemForYourLife

• 0:00 – What are fingerprints, really?
• 5:30 – What’s actually left behind when you touch something?
• 9:20 – The two main categories of fingerprint detection
• 14:00 – How fingerprint powder actually works
• 18:40 – Iodine fuming and why fingerprints disappear again
• 25:25 – Revealing fingerprints on sticky tape
• 29:40 – Ninhydrin and the chemistry behind purple fingerprints
• 35:05 – The surprising science of super glue fuming
• 42:20 – Why collecting fingerprints is much harder than TV makes it look
• 46:10 – Jam’s biggest takeaways from fingerprint chemistry

References from the Episode:

Thanks to our monthly supporters
Sara Hull
Dog Day Dan
Bri .
Summer Alden
Amanda Raymond
Kyle McCray
Justine
Ash
Vince W
Julie S.
Heather Ragusa
Autoclave
Dorien VD
Scott Beyer
Jessie Reder
J0HNTR0Y
Cullyn R
Erica Bee
Elizabeth P
Rachel Reina
Letila
Katrina Barnum-Huckins
Suzanne Phillips
Venus Rebholz
Jacob Taber
Brian Kimball
Kristina Gotfredsen
Timothy Parker
Steven Boyles
Chris Skupien
Chelsea B
Avishai Barnoy
Hunter Reardon

Check out our website at chemforyourlife.com

Watch our episodes on YouTube

Find us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook @ChemForYourLife

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What does it mean to teach chemistry like a scientist? In this BCCE Community Conversation preview, Melissa talks with chemistry education researcher Ellen Yezierski about scholarly teaching: making evidence-guided decisions about how we teach and how students learn. They discuss why content knowledge alone isn’t enough, how educators can improve their teaching without becoming full-time researchers, and why some of the best chemistry teaching ideas come from asking better questions about learning.

Important Links

• bcce.divched.org/2026
• YouTube.com/@chemforyourlife
• chemforyourlife.com

Time Stamps

0:00 – Why Melissa loves BCCE and chemistry education 2:50 – Meet Ellen Yezierski and the idea of scholarly teaching 4:00 – Moving beyond intuition and using evidence to improve teaching 6:35 – What chemistry educators can learn from cognitive science and education research 8:30 – The biggest challenge: finding time to improve your teaching 11:00 – Why conferences and community matter for innovation 13:45 – Barriers to evidence-based teaching and the risk of changing what’s familiar 16:20 – Applying the same scientific scrutiny to old teaching methods 19:40 – A practical first step toward scholarly teaching 21:00 – Finding useful teaching research without getting overwhelmed 25:20 – Meet the panelists and the ideas they’ll bring to BCCE 29:10 – How the Community Conversation will work 32:35 – Why good teachers are made, not born 34:00 – Filling your teaching cup back up at BCCE

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#061

Be honest. Have you ever glued yourself with super glue? Everyone should accidentally make that mistake at least once, so you can literally feel the impressive stickiness of super glue. Well today, you can learn about the chemistry within super glue, without putting any fingers or other body parts at risk! Let's do this.

References from this episode

1. Introduction to Polymers R.J. Young and P. A. Lovell
2. http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/motm/superglue/superglueh.htm
3. https://www.chemistryworld.com/podcasts/cyanoacrylate/6261.article
4. https://pubsapp.acs.org/cen/whatstuff/86/8624sci5.html
5. https://www.acs.org/content/dam/acsorg/education/students/highschool/chemistryclubs/March_ChemClubCal.pdf
6. https://www.acs.org/content/dam/acsorg/education/resources/highschool/chemmatters/articlesbytopic/bonding/chemmatters-dec2006-glue.pdf

Thanks to our monthly supporters

• Ciara Linville
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