Teaching - our life, our future

Welcome back, I hope you had a good break and that you haven't yet broken too many New Year's resolutions. The International Year of Chemistry (IYC 2011) has now begun, with the theme 'Chemistry - our life, our future' and over the next 12 months I hope that Education in Chemistry can help you to teach your pupils and students just how vital and relevant chemistry still is.

However, I don't just want this to be a one way communication. If we publish something you like, tell us. If you disagree with our views, write a letter. As the landscape of teaching changes, EiC will have to change with it. We have to continue to support you and more than ever we as a community need to work together. At the end of this editorial is a list of ways in which you can interact with us, and in the next issue we will be publishing a readers' survey. The assistant editor David will be attending the ASE conference at the University of Reading in January; he wants to hear your views as much as I do.

Changes for EiC

While EiC will still be working as hard as ever to support you, there are some changes that you will notice Infochem, our student supplement, has had a revamp. You may not be the target audience, but judging from the number of entries we receive for the prize puzzles each issue, the pupils definitely read it. Again, we'd love feedback.

We'll also be adjusting our issue schedule slightly, to try and fit better with the school terms. It seems foolish to deliver a magazine to a closed school over the summer holidays, so we won't.

Your next issue will arrive at the beginning of March as usual, but issue 3 will appear at the end of April. Issues 4, 5 and 6 will be delivered at the start of June, early September and November as normal.

Changes for us all

There's been a lot of news about funding and fees over the last few months for teachers and their students to take in, and I'm sure more will come.

In Endpoint this issue, David Phillips has taken the opportunity to think about how these changes could be embraced and used to instigate reform of teaching chemical science at all levels.

Whether you agree or you disagree with his conclusions, the idea of creating something positive from what we are told is a necessity is perhaps the best way I could think of to finish this issue.

Social Media

EiC has entered the whirl of social media. You can become a fan on Facebook, tweet or follow us on Twitter, or join our readers group on MyRSC. However, phone, post and email work just as well (see our People & Contacts page).