American Chemical Society
About ACS.
The American Chemical Society (NUS Student Chapter), or NUS ACSSC for short, was founded in 2014 by a group of chemistry undergraduates seeking a two-fold charge: To provide career guidance to fellow peers, as well as to promote chemistry as a choice of study to secondary and junior college students. The 8th executive committee comprised eleven members, with one president, two vice presidents, one secretary/treasurer, two programme officers, two strategy officers, two publicity officers and one welfare director.
We seek to offer career guidance and academic information to current chemistry undergraduates by organizing events such as mentorship programmes, industrial visits and talks with professionals. We wish to promote chemistry as a choice of study for secondary and junior college students through running outreach events such as workshops and lessons.
This June, NUS ACSSC held an esterification workshop for pre-university students, teaching them the real process of synthesizing an ester instead of the simplified version they learn in their school syllabus of acid + alcohol -> ester. 1-Propyl acetate (pear oil) was synthesized from 1-propanol and acetic acid using a distillation setup. The workshop began with a short briefing on safety and procedures, and the participants were given 4 hours to perform the experiment according to the lab manual provided, under the supervision of ACS members. Through the workshop, participants learnt various new techniques and apparatus in a fun and engaging manner.