Monthly molecules inspire the public
175 minutes for chemistry
Simon Cotton, an Honorary Senior Lecturer in Chemistry at the University of Birmingham tells us about things he does in his spare time, including Molecule of the Month, because he just loves chemistry.
Simon hasn’t always been in academia: he has 30 years’ experience a teacher in a number of secondary schools and has remained committed to promoting chemistry particularly to A-Level students. He is a primary contributor to Molecule of the Month, a site dedicated to showcasing important chemical substances every month. Alongside colleague Paul May, they wrote a book on some of the best articles, called Molecules That Amaze Us. When asked about why they commit to this, Simon said: “Molecules are incredibly interesting. We are made of lots of different molecules and use molecules continually, whether unconsciously in the workings of our body or consciously in those we take into our system. We have to get across to other people why they should bother about them”.
Professor Paul May, alongside his colleagues Henry Rzepa and Karl Harrison, founded Molecule of the Month over twenty years ago; their thinking was to communicate the wonder of chemistry to a wider audience. “Some of the earliest articles were short and rather basic, but more recent ones have been more detailed with diagrams, video and reaction schemes”. Now, Paul and Simon try to stray away from the academic style, and aim at the level that is readily understood by a motivated 18-year-old. Their readership also includes adults from a non-scientific background. The posts aim to weave an interesting story about the history of that month’s molecule and its role in society, as well as including the facts. Over the last twenty years, the pages have had over 4 million hits, equating to nearly 20,000 readers per article. Paul tells us “When you write a molecule of the month page, you can learn so many interesting facts. For example, I didn’t know anything about what vitamin K did until I wrote a page on it this year”.
After a thirty-year career as a school teacher, Simon still enjoys talking to A-level students about ways that they can relate chemistry to real life issues. This year he gave a talk in a secondary school about the chemistry of drugs in sport and particularly enjoyed hearing students’ thoughts of the subject. Simon also writes for ‘the Conversation’ about a range of topics, including food chemistry.
Simon says these activities help him to satisfy his own curiosity: “I’m motivated by the intellectual satisfaction I get from researching and writing things and the feeling of understanding ‘why’”. In the future, Simon he wants to carry on finding out more about interesting molecules and writing around them!
Simon and Paul say that “you don’t have to have a degree to write an interesting MOTM and we’re always on the lookout for new writers to produce MOTMs – there are still plenty of interesting molecules to write about”.
175 minutes for chemistry
As the oldest chemical society in the world, we celebrated our 175th anniversary in 2016. We wanted to mark this milestone by recognising the important contributions our community makes to the chemical sciences. We asked our members and supporters to dedicate 175 minutes to chemistry in 2016 and share their stories with us. We featured these stories throughout the year on our website, in print in RSC News, and on social media using #time4chem.
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