Busy Days

I have been at Kemin for over a week now in my second time around here. Things started off pretty busy at the beginning of this week. I began testing a Kemin material that the company has been looking into. I have learned a lot this week, especially in the areas of just getting used to different methods in the lab. I believe that real world chemical methods are often overlooked in the secondary high school chemistry classes. I don't think that students neccesarily need to being methods that are at the level of things done at Kemin, but some of the basic concepts need to be taught to students, especially methods like uv-visible spectroscopy and basic chromatography, because these methods are widely used in the many different types of chemical industry. I think the lack of teaching these methods may be due to lack of knowledge or resources of the teacher. Teacher's may not know how to do these methods, dispose of chemicals, or even afford the proper equipment. Professional development can definitely help in these areas, and placing teachers with companies during their summer time off is a great opportunity to develop great teaching skills that cannot be learned elsewhere. One other thing that has become clearly evident this summer is that if you want to hold a successful job, then you have to work hard, and I think a number of high school students lack this. There are many factors for this but I believe one of them is because students are not required to complete challenging work in their classes. For example, plenty of workers here at Kemin work at least 9 hours a day, and sometimes even take work home with them. Sometimes I have noticed that some classes are being watered down and the students aren't being challenged. Well, I have to get back to work here, I will try and keep on keeping you updated.