June 2010 Archives

By Lara Mcnamee

IChemE will be holding its Awards for Innovation and Excellence on 4 November in Manchester, UK. The event, now in its 17th year, will mark both individual and team achievement. Included in the awards line up is an award for education and training - sponsored by Cogent.

This award recognizes the individual or team that best demonstrates innovation in training, development of staff or education of a wider community, that changes public perception, develops young people, or addresses a chemical engineering skills gap.

Among the other accolades available is a core chemical engineering award, an engineering project of the year award and the young engineer of the year award.

The deadline for entries is 16 July. For more information contact Matt Stalker.

By Lara Mcnamee

From 3-9 June 2010, BASF is running its popular Kids' Lab at the Hong Kong Science Museum. The company says that around 700 children aged 6-12 are expected to join in a programme designed to make chemistry fun through meaningful, hands-on experiments.

BASF hopes that through the success of the Kids' Lab programme that it will encourage children to become scientists in the future.

Children will be able to conduct three experiments:

•    "Red Cabbage Indicator"
•    "A Chemical Change"
•    "Making Paper"

BASF says that two of this year's experiments are shown for the first time in Hong Kong, "Red Cabbage Indicator" and "A Chemical Change". Children will be able to learn about a "chemical change" using materials commonly found in the home, and how colour extracted from red cabbage varies with pH values.  

Some facts about BASF Kids' Lab

•    BASF Kids' Lab is an interactive chemistry education programme first launched at BASF's headquarters in 1997 in Germany as part of BASF's social responsibility activities.
•    Since its introduction in the Asia Pacific region in 2002, BASF Kids' Lab is currently conducted in 12 countries and regions in Asia Pacific, and has more than 20,000 participants every year.
•    This is the fifth consecutive year of collaboration between BASF and the Science Museum.

Check out BASF's new Facebook page for participants and interested parties to share photos and comments.

By Lara Mcnamee

Bayer says that applications for the scholarship programmes of the Bayer Science & Education Foundation can now be submitted. In the academic sector, students can apply for a Bayer, Carl Duisberg or Kurt Hansen scholarship if they are aiming to undertake a study project abroad.

The fields of study funded include biology, biochemistry, biotechnology, bioprocess engineering, chemistry, chemical engineering, medicine, pharmacy, physics, statistics/biometrics and teacher training in scientific subjects.

Each year the Bayer foundation makes available a total of up to €150,000 for these scholarships. Sponsorship is open to students from Germany who are planning a period abroad and students from foreign countries who are looking to spend a period of study in Germany.

For the first time, the scholarships in the academic sector are being supplemented by Hermann Strenger scholarships to support young people looking to gain initial work experience as part of a non-academic training programme.

Applications are invited from trainees in commercial, industrial, scientific and medical occupations and young professionals in these fields who have completed their training within the past two years.

With this new programme, the Bayer Science & Education Foundation is looking to offer targeted funding to young people in the non-academic sector to allow them to gain professional experience abroad. The foundation will this year provide a further €50,000 for this programme.

The closing date for applications for all four scholarship programmes is 15 July 2010. The application documents are available online. An independent scientific committee will decide on the allocation of funding in mid-September 2010.

By Lara Mcnamee

ExxonMobil is launching the 39th year of its community summer jobs programme, providing interns for 270 non profit agencies across America for eight weeks over the summer.

Students receive a paid internship allowing them to gain hands-on experience in a wide range of community organisations and the agencies benefit from support during the peak summer months. The programme also offers professional development opportunities and encourages non profit service among students viewed as future community leaders.

ExxonMobil says it has provided $16.3m to fund nearly 4,400 internships since the programme was founded in 1971. In 2010, ExxonMobil expects to contribute around $950,000 to fund 320 positions in Alabama, Alaska, California, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, Montana, Oklahoma, Texas, Virginia and Wyoming. The programme has also extended to New Jersey for the first time.

Non profit organisations selected for the programme include health, social services, education, arts and emergency assistance. While working with these organisations, interns gain hands-on experience related to their career paths, from social work and volunteer coordination to website management and marketing.

In addition to their internships, students also participate in professional development activities and group service projects in their respective cities. Interns are paid for all time spent in the programme.

For more information about the community summer jobs programme visit www.exxonmobil.com/csjp.