ChemEd 2025

History of the Friesen Lecture

The Reg Friesen lecture is a special part of a ChemEd conference. The honorary lecture was inaugurated at ChemEd 87 to recognize Reg Friesen’s outstanding contributions to the chemical education community. Reg was the founding editor of Chem 13 News in 1968 and was actively involved in the ChemEd conference series from its inception in 1973. Reg gave high school teachers a voice and encouraged them to share and learn together. The Reg Friesen lecturer is selected to reflect Reg’s belief that chemistry teachers can and do make a difference in students’ lives and in the chemistry community. After Reg passed away in 1998, the lecture took on additional meaning to the many in the ChemEd community who called him a friend.

The title of my talk will be “The Chemistry of Rockets.”  The presentation will include a series of chemical demonstrations to illustrate the principles of rocket chemistry.  My goal will be to make everyone in the audience a rocket scientist in less than an hour.  I will be having volunteers (hopefully!) from the audience assist in the demonstrations. Please see the attached documents for more details about the demonstrations and lecture!