. The planned activities are:

       I.            Organizing an International Symposium in August 2011 bringing chemists from all over the world to Kenya (The 14th NAPRECA Symposium, August 8-12, 2011).

    II.            Organizing series of Public Lectures in several High Schools in Kenya on the contribution of chemistry in everyday life. The lectures will be on the following topics:

a)      Chemistry and Agriculture

b)      Chemistry and Industry

c)       Chemistry and the environment

d)      Chemistry and Energy

e)      Chemistry in the Hygiene and Beauty Products  Industry

f)       Chemistry and Health

g)      Chemistry and Nutrition

h)      Chemistry of the Automobile

i)        The Green House effect

j)        Green Chemistry

    III.            Organizing exhibitions demonstrating the common applications of chemistry in everyday life. These will be in the form of fun experiments, poems, music, video shows and paintings. Most of the experiments selected for demonstrations are those which are already in the High School syllabus but the schools are unable to do them due to lack of resources. These experiments earmarked for demonstrations are:

a)      Chromatography (Separation of Dyes on Paper and Silica gel)

b)      Steam distillation (Essential oils)

c)        Fractional Distillation

d)      Molecular models (Organic compounds, NaCl, ice etc)

e)      Water chemistry (Dissolved oxygen, water hardness)

f)       Electroplating

g)      Prevention of rusting (cathodic protection)

h)      Soaps and detergents

i)        Synthesis of polymers (nylon 66)

j)        Construction of mini-blast furnace

k)      Thompson’s experiments (proof of the existence of electrons)

 IV.            Produce commemorative T-Shirts, Periodic Tables, Calendar and Key holders

The planned activities will begin in January 2011 and continue until the end of the year. To kick of the celebrations four members of staff from the Department of Chemistry, University of Nairobi, contributed money towards the production of 100 T-shirts with IYC 2011 logo and theme “Chemistry - our life our future”.

The Women In Chemistry (WIC) members of the department had a breakfast meeting on Wednesday January 19, 2011 together with WIC members all over the world.

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