National Chemistry Week


National Chemistry Week is an annual event held in the United States to raise public awareness of the importance of chemistry in everyday life. It is coordinated by the American Chemical Society.
National Chemistry Week is a community-based program that unites ACS local sections, businesses, schools, and individuals in communicating the importance of chemistry to our quality of life.
National Chemistry Week has won the American Society of Association Executives' Award for Excellence. More than 10,000 volunteers and dozens of chemical companies donate their time, creativity, materials and funds for NCW each year, and reach many millions of Americans via print, radio, television, and the internet, as well as in person.

Origins

National Chemistry Day, first celebrated in 1987 by members of the American Chemical Society, educators and other individual volunteers, was a vision of the former ACS President Dr. George C. Pimentel. His goal was for ACS to hold a simultaneous event nationwide to impress on the public the importance of chemistry in everyday life. The first celebration was kicked off with a parade down the streets in Washington, D.C.
In 1989 the celebration was expanded to a biannual full-week event, and in 1993 National Chemistry Week became an annual celebration.

Themes

Past and future themes for NCW include:
Theme
1997 Planet Chemistry
1998 A World of Color
1999 A Global Salute to Polymers
2000 Get Cooking with Chemistry
2001 Celebrating Chemistry & Art
2002 Chemistry Keeps Us Clean!
2003 Earth's Atmosphere and Beyond
2004 Health and Wellness
2005 The Joy of Toys
2006 Your Home — It's All Built on Chemistry
2007 The Many Faces of Chemistry
2008 Having a Ball with Chemistry
2009 Chemistry — It's Elemental!
2010 Behind the Scenes with Chemistry
2011 Chemistry—Our Health, Our Future!
2012 Nanotechnology: The Smallest BIG Idea in Science!
2013 Energy: Now and Forever!
2014 The Sweet Side of Chemistry — Candy
2015 Chemistry Colors Our World
2016 Solving Mysteries Through Chemistry
2017 Chemistry Rocks!
2018 Chemistry is Out of This World
2019 Marvelous Metals

All themes and dates can be found at www.acs.org/ncw.