COMMUNITY OUTREACH · CHEMISTRY EDUCATION
Practical teacher training, memorable lectures and demonstrations, and individualized instruction.
CHEMISTRY THAT INVITES PARTICIPATION
McLaughlinWeb supports schools, teachers, families, and community organizations seeking chemistry instruction that is rigorous, approachable, and alive with questions. Programs can be adapted for a faculty workshop, a single classroom visit, a public demonstration, or sustained individual study.
FLEXIBLE OFFERINGS
Programs are built around the audience, schedule, and goals—not a fixed package.
Interactive professional development for chemistry and physical-science teachers, with an emphasis on classroom practice rather than abstract theory.
Part-time teaching, guest lectures, and chemistry demonstrations for schools, colleges, clubs, and community programs.
Focused support for students who need remediation, enrichment, test preparation, or a more intuitive path through difficult chemistry.
A TEACHING PHILOSOPHY
“An education isn’t how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It’s being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don’t.” — Anatole France
“I am always doing what I cannot do yet, in order to learn how to do it.” — Vincent Van Gogh
“Spoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon.” — Anonymous
“Just as iron rusts from disuse, even so does inaction spoil the intellect.” — Leonardo Da Vinci
“A pupil from whom nothing is ever demanded which he cannot do, never does all he can.” — J.S.Mill
“The lecturer should give the audience full reason to believe that all his powers have been exerted for their pleasure and instruction.” — Michael Faraday
“Too often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve.” — Roger Lewin
“Education is what remains when we have forgotten all that we have been taught.” — George Savile, Narquis Of Halifax
“We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.” — Kurt Vonnegut
“Man’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimension.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes
“Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.” — Henry Ford
“I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn’t learn something from him.” — Galileo Galilei
EXPERIENCE ACROSS CLASSROOMS AND CONTINENTS
Michael McLaughlin has taught chemistry from introductory through accelerated AP+ levels, including general chemistry laboratory at Columbia University and long-term appointments at San Marcos High School, King’s Academy in Jordan, and Phillips Exeter Academy.
He earned his B.A. in chemistry from Columbia University, where he completed graduate-level coursework in advanced organic and inorganic chemistry, taught general chemistry laboratory, and assisted with research in physical chemistry. During this period, he also conducted theoretical chemistry research at UC Santa Barbara and served as a forensic science intern in the FBI Laboratory Division, assisting with casework and polymer identification using GC/MS. He later earned an M.Ed. from Stanford University. His teacher-development work has included training more than 320 science educators in South Africa with Teachers Across Borders, mentoring teachers in the UCSB credentialing program, and collaborating with students and colleagues through the Japan-Fulbright Memorial Fund Teacher Program and later the RIKEN Institute’s Nishina Nuclear Accelerator Physics Program.
Across these settings, the common goal has been to create classrooms where students discuss ideas seriously, understand scientific modeling, and experience chemistry as something they can reason through—not simply memorize.
IN THE LAB AND CLASSROOM
LET’S TALK
Share the audience, setting, and outcome you have in mind. A workshop, lecture, demonstration, tutoring arrangement, or short teaching engagement can be shaped from there.