BCA Spring Meeting 2002 University of Nottingham Monday 25 March to Thursday 28 March 2002

I am planning another session on "Education" for the BCA meeting in Nottingham, and wondering what form it should take. What do you think? Are there any burning educational issues which you think the BCA is neglecting? Would you like to tell your fellow members about them in a short talk lasting between 5 and 10 minutes? If so, please send me a brief abstract, just a sentence or two, preferably by email ([email protected]), so that I can select some for presentation. I would be delighted to see any new teaching aids you find useful, diagrams for teaching symmetry, software new or old which your students can use, new molecular or crystal models, etc so that I can update the BCA list of educational resources.

I can tell you about BCA plans for an improved "educational website" aimed at showing children and the general public something of the excitement of crystallography or I can demonstrate the paper cut out "molecular models of the crystal classes" which I hope to have available from the BCA Website soon.

It has been suggested that since education affects all BCA Groups, there might be a Special Interest Group (SIG) for those members interested in education. We might have a regular article in "Crystallography News" on teaching topics, such as "Designing a Winning Poster", "How I teach the stereographic projection", "Helping students to use the International Tables", "Teaching crystallography to Toddlers". Is this a good idea? Do you want a SIG?

Your ideas are welcome. Come along to the session on Monday 25 March 2002 at 17.30 or catch me at any time during the meeting to tell me about them. I plan to submit a Poster on Education with a few of my ideas, but leave lots of space, so come to the Poster session with an A4 page of your ideas and help me make a better Poster. Should a section of the Posters be devoted to "Education"?