From 27-31 August 2006 the First European Chemistry Congress, organised by EuCheMS, will be held in Budapest. 

The symposium Teaching Chemistry - Past, Present and Future, organised by the Division of Chemical Education and the Working Party on History of Chemistry, will be held on Wednesday 30 and Thursday 31 August 2006.

The talks in this symposium will examine how the teaching of chemistry has developed through the nineteenth and twentieth century at various levels. There will then be an opportunity to consider the current status of chemical education, and consider what developments may be important in this subject in future years. Four invited lectures will be given, by:

• William H. Brock (Seaford, UK), ‘Breeding chemists. Teaching chemists in nineteenth-century Europe’
• Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent (Paris, France), ‘Developments in twentieth- century chemistry teaching’
• Ilka Parchmann (Kiel, Germany) ‘Second level chemical education - present and future’
• Tony Smith (CPE, Lyon, France), ‘Third level chemical education - present and future’     

Colleagues who would like to present a poster on a topic related to the past, present, and future of chemistry teaching are kindly invited to submit an abstract. Some of the posters will be selected for inclusion as 15 minutes talks in the symposium, and some others for inclusion in a poster appetiser session consisting of three minute talks at the start of the poster viewing session. The Programme Committee that will determine acceptance of posters consists of: Anita Honkala (Finland), Gerhard Pohl (Austria) and Ernst Homburg (Netherlands) for the Working Party, and Peter Childs (Ireland) and Paul Yates (UK), for the Division of Chemical Education.

Abstracts should be submitted on-line before 28 February 2006, through the general conference website.