June 8, 2025 • 42 mins
Marc and Nick sit down with Dr. Colleen Kelley, retired chemistry professor, TEDx speaker, and author of Kids' Chemistry comic books. Dr. Kelley shares how her passion for science has led her on a journey to bring molecular literacy to elementary school students through story telling and fun.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:10):
Colleen Kelley (00:00)
not everybody has access to being able to perform, right? Because that's not what we're trained to do, especially in higher education. And I would argue why it's so important is because when I get my students to laugh, when I'm goofy, when I talk about, this is how we're going to attach Gingy's leg back on from Shrek using these chemicals, you know, and then all of sudden their mind goes to Shrek.
and they think of that scene with Gingy or wherever I go to in crazy places in my lecture, I'm relaxing them. And we know that a relaxed brain is an open mind. And I can get the concepts in so much stronger. So if I really want them to learn, I need to get them in a place that they can learn. And so laughter opens the mind.
Marc Isseks (01:05)
Welcome to State of Ed, a podcast about education inside the classroom and out. My name is Marc Isseks How are you today, Nick?
Nicholas Simone (01:11)
And I'm Nick Simone.
Doing very well, yourself.
Marc Isseks (01:15)
Doing great. It is late May here in New York and we are
on the verge of ending this school year over the next few weeks. And as everybody in education knows, this school year does not wind down one bit. It ramps up and continues to ramp up until you are finally let off the roller coaster ride at the very, end. so that's kind of where we are right now is in those final wild turns around on that ride. So, but happy to be here and super excited about our guests.
Our guest today is Dr. Colleen Kelley, a retired professor of chemistry at the University of Arizona. She's also the creator of a series of comic books designed to inspire children to become fascinated with the magic of chemistry. Yes, you heard that correctly. This labor of love for Dr. Kelley led to a TEDx talk and was featured in a PBS documentary entitled Comic Book Chemistry, which was awarded an Emmy. Dr. Kelley holds a PhD in chemistry from Penn State University.
Dr. Kelley, you missed your cue. ⁓ Was awarded.
Colleen Kelley (02:19)
I
Nicholas Simone (02:20)
Hehehehehe
Marc Isseks (02:21)
was awarded a Chateaubriand Fellowship to conduct research at University Pasteur in Strasbourg, France, under the direction of Nobel Prize winner Jean-Marie Len. She has published four chemistry textbooks and over 30 peer-reviewed articles. We can't wait to dive into this conversation with Dr. Kelley. Dr. Kelley, welcome to State of Ed.
Colleen Kelley (02:43)
thank you. It's great to be here, Marc.
Marc Isseks (02:45)
So Penn State, right? We threw out, I tried to put it on a T for you, but you were so good. You were waiting for the intro as we had discussed. So I'm sorry.
Nicholas Simone (02:46)
Yeah.
Colleen Kelley (02:47)
Hahaha!
Nicholas Simone (02:54)
She's probably
more loyal to the University of Arizona now.
Colleen Kelley (02:58)
No, no, I'm born and raised in Pennsylvania and yeah, I was going to Penn State football games since I could walk. So the fact that I ended up in graduate school there was a little bit strange for me. I didn't expect to, I wanted to see the world and there I was back in state college, but it was an amazing experience. So it's in my blood, Nick.
Nicholas Simone (03:02)
Okay.
you
(00:31):
Okay, okay.
Marc Isseks (03:20)
I can only imagine. And I will absolutely hold aside the fact that my son is a Hoosier and that's a Big Ten rival of Penn State. So we won't let that get in the way of our conversation today, I promise. So can you, since you were talking about your roots, can you kind of take us through what sparked your interest in chemistry of all the disciplines?
Colleen Kelley (03:31)
Okay.
Right, yeah, so I am a first generation college student and really wasn't in an environment where education was valued or expected. I just went to school like any other kid in central Pennsylvania. And then in March of 1979, I remember being in my seventh grade English class and the loudspeakers went off and there was this announcement that was kind of muddled and it said school is closing.
because it's raining radiation. And we were so excited because we're seventh graders. We ran to the windows and we flung them open and we hung our heads out and we're searching the skies for this magical and mystical raining radiation with just such enthusiasm. Yeah, well, we were like, this could be the coolest thing ever. And then school was closed. We were sent home on the buses and...
Marc Isseks (04:11)
You
Nicholas Simone (04:12)
Wow.
Marc Isseks (04:24)
which is exactly what you want to do when it's raining radiation. You want to stick your head out the window.
Colleen Kelley (04:34)
I remember getting off the bus and our bus driver told us, said, take your jackets and put them over your heads, kind of like umbrellas, to shield yourself from nuclear fallout. Okay, so I can assure you none of our jackets were made of lead, but we all did that and ran home joyfully like, this is like incredible. And I burst through the doors and I just...
told everyone at home that this is the best day ever, school's closing. Seems like maybe forever. It's raining radiation and what other good things could happen except for apparently, according to the news, it's raining radiation like two miles from my house. I'm like, that's so cool, it's so close. Like we're really gonna get to see this. And it turns out that was the near nuclear accident at Three Mile Island. So what sparked my interest
was I remember sitting there and watching the news and watching Barbara Walters and hearing her say radioactive particles and cooling towers. I like, what are these words? So I asked my parents and they're like, well, it's serious and we have to evacuate. And that's all they said. I said, but why? And their answer was because. And that because changed my life because...
I thought somebody has got to be able to explain this to me. And I was already a very curious little girl and I read a ton. I read every book I could get my hands on, mysteries mostly, Agatha Christie, that genre. And I thought, well, this is a mystery to solve. And there are these like invisible enemies called radioactive particles and chemicals. And I wanted to solve this problem. when it came time in school to learn chemistry,
I thought, finally, I get to know more about this, and just really started to pay more attention to chemistry and then kind of connect it with my love for reading and mysteries and putting that all together.
Nicholas Simone (06:34)
Wow. Dr. Kelley, I taught AP US history for most of my career. So the extent of my teaching about Three Mile Island was to give them what the answer is on the multiple choice test. I can't believe this is the first firsthand account that I ever heard from Three Mile Island. would have elevated my lessons tremendously.
Colleen Kelley (06:39)
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
Marc Isseks (06:45)
You
Colleen Kelley (06:50)
you
Well,
next time you teach it, I'll hop on a Zoom. ⁓
Nicholas Simone (06:58)
Absolutely, that's fascinating,
(00:52):
wow.
Marc Isseks (07:01)
Can I ask a question when you finally got to chemistry and you had this long awaited opportunity to have these questions answered, were you disappointed that it was just sort of like the curriculum being presented to you or did you have the good fortune of having a really dynamic chemistry teacher who really just poured gasoline on your fire of curiosity?
Colleen Kelley (07:24)
Yeah,
the second, I was quite shy in high school and read a lot. And I feel like my chemistry teacher was the first teacher that I actually connected with and that saw me and saw how like I just, couldn't get enough of it. I always tell the story. This is all right to your audience, know, disclaimer, this happened a long time ago, but I was on the swim team and I used to do everybody's chemistry homework. I couldn't get enough of it. I mean, we'd be on the bus to an away meet and everybody would be
hand
in their homework over to me and I'd be doing it. And it was the most fun I could possibly have. I would go to the pool and before swim practice, they'd say, hey, can you work these problems? Here you go. But it was because my teacher was so good and he understood that I love solving problems and the language just spoke to me. And again, I wasn't brought up in a...
Marc Isseks (07:57)
Where were you when I needed you?
Colleen Kelley (08:16)
environment where there were other scientists around. I didn't know any other scientists, but I knew Hercule Perrault Poirot stories and knew he looked at clues. I just liked solving puzzles. That's where it all came about. I definitely credit my high school chemistry teacher for igniting the fire.
Nicholas Simone (08:33)
That's great.
Marc Isseks (08:33)
If you don't mind me
asking, What was it about the way that chemistry was taught by that teacher that ignited the fire for you?
Colleen Kelley (08:40)
It's something that I adopted in my own classrooms years later. He acted. And so if he wanted to show an electron changing energy levels, he would jump from desk to desk, literally. Like we were afraid he was going to fall on us. But he had such energy. And what he did is something that I adopted that eventually became my comic books, is he told stories around them while he was acting. So it became a...
performance that was robust and rigorous and gave me the foundation to eventually go to college and major in chemistry and do well. So he didn't truncate or dilute any learning, but it was just the energy that day after day after day and humor and then the ability to kind of see us all as
who we were, like really make eye contact with students and tell the stories like that.
Nicholas Simone (09:31)
So when you were teaching in the college, how many years did you spend teaching in college?
Colleen Kelley (09:35)
Thirty
Yeah.
Nicholas Simone (09:36)
Did you
teach that to primarily chemistry majors or was it a mixture of kids that maybe needed a science requirement for college?
Colleen Kelley (09:46)
Yes, I taught to the thousands and thousands of students who didn't want to be in front of me at all.
Nicholas Simone (09:52)
You read my
(01:13):
mind. ⁓
Colleen Kelley (09:53)
Yeah, I always
tell the story about how excited I was going into an auditorium of 200 people for my very first lecture. And at this point I was teaching at Northern Arizona University and how excited, like I thought it was going to change their lives. And I walked in and I quickly realized they were looking at me like a female Darth Vader of sorts. I thought, man, not only is it 8 a.m. and there's 200 of you, but you really don't like me.
Nicholas Simone (10:14)
Ha ha ha.
Colleen Kelley (10:20)
and I've not met you yet.
Nicholas Simone (10:21)
That's great.
Marc Isseks (10:24)
the
opposite of Sally Field at the Oscars.
Colleen Kelley (10:26)
Yeah,
exactly.
Nicholas Simone (10:28)
So I'm assuming that that was a bit of a challenge in the beginning of your career.
Colleen Kelley (10:33)
You know, year after year, I mean, you have this very skeptical audience year after year that doesn't change. Chemistry needs a huge rebranding and that's part of what I'm trying to do. But up until then, they're being told by their roommates, their parents, oh, yuck, you have to take that? Good luck, dude. And then they come into me and I have to dislodge all of that lore and culture that tells them it's just gonna be a horrible experience.
Marc Isseks (11:01)
I love that when you were describing your chemistry teacher, you spoke about how energetic and how we infused storytelling. It was almost like a form of entertainment. And I know that this is a sore spot for some educators because they feel like they're, they're not there to entertain students. They're there to teach students. So what do you say to those educators who are kind of like reluctant to, put
that foot forward, if you will, in the classroom and kind of lean into the performance art of teaching as opposed to just the transferring of knowledge.
Colleen Kelley (11:32)
I understand that stance for sure. And not everybody has access to being able to perform, right? Because that's not what we're trained to do, especially in higher education. And I would argue why it's so important is because when I get my students to laugh, when I'm goofy, when I talk about, this is how we're going to attach Gingy's leg back on from Shrek using these chemicals, you know, and then all of sudden their mind goes to Shrek.
and they think of that scene with Gingy or wherever I go to in crazy places in my lecture, I'm relaxing them. And we know that a relaxed brain is an open mind. And I can get the concepts in so much stronger. So if I really want them to learn, I need to get them in a place that they can learn. And so laughter opens the mind.
humor, performance, they're engaged a little bit more. So all of these tricks to open up neural pathways to receive information and assemble them, we should use all of them. So whether it's being soft, kind.
making eye contact with them. Even if it's 200 students, I walk up and down the auditorium, look at their papers, chat with them, say, did you see the game last night? That kind of thing. So all of these things are creating an environment. And it's the environment that's, for me, that I need to be relaxed because otherwise the other barriers for chemistry especially are so high that I don't have a chance for them to learn anything in my room.
Nicholas Simone (13:03)
So with what you just said, can you describe your journey from, you said 30 years in a college environment to wanting to teach science to four to 12 year olds and create these chemistry comic books and curriculum?
Colleen Kelley (13:18)
Yeah, so, you know, year after year, I told you the story or shared the story about students looking at me like a female Darth Vader. And I'm looking back at this audience of mainly pre-meds. They're not chemistry majors, but they want to excel in life and they've got big goals. They might be engineering majors, they might be pre-med, they might be nursing. But most of these kids have received A's since they could tie their shoes. And they have A's in every other class.
And they're just excellent and they're motivated. And so I don't have any of those other barriers that maybe other faculty might have like, well, they're just not studying hard enough. Everybody there is an overachiever. And then they get to organic chemistry and all of a sudden, Goodwill Hunting had it correct. If you go back and watch that movie, the scene about organic chemistry is totally true. So.
(01:34):
And all of sudden they are deflated. They're getting a C or a D and they don't understand why.
I really had to uncover what's happening with this group of students. And I couldn't use the traditional reasoning of not studying hard enough, they're slacking, blah, So I had to really ask the question is why are they not succeeding in chemistry? And years of research came to the fact that they were coming to college and for the most part were molecularly illiterate. And molecular literacy,
is a term that I coined with my research where really we need to teach chemistry like we teach reading because learning chemistry is like learning to read. So imagine if we delayed teaching the alphabet until a child was in 11th or 12th grade and then sent them to college and had them analyze Hemingway their freshman year. Right? That's precisely what we're doing with chemistry. They might see their first periodic table in high school.
and then we launch them. And so they have no time to develop literacy. We know literacy takes decades, and the same is true for molecular literacy. And once I realized that they were having this form of illiteracy, it changes everything, right? Because if someone can't read, you have to start at the beginning.
And so I thought, well, where do kids really transition from learning to read to reading to learn? And that's about third grade. And I thought, well, if we look at the periodic table as the alphabet of science.
and take two elements and put them together to make a formula, which is a word, and use the same strategies that they have just used for learning to read, for learning chemistry, what would happen. And that's where I really wanted to get in front of younger audiences. So when I could retire, I did, because I really wanted then to get down to what happens with these younger brains who are at the same spot that the 20-year-olds are.
And sometimes I use a music analogy. We know the best time to teach music to children is right around eight years old or maybe even younger. Right. And so if they hadn't learned music yet, they're going to start where the eight year olds start. whether you're 28 or 108, you're all starting at the beginning. So it's a beginner's mindset. So really the little, the, I call them my littles, my elementary school students.
are at the same spot as my college students. They're just in smaller bodies. But they have bigger brains in some ways because they have huge imagination still.
Nicholas Simone (16:57)
Wow, that was very powerful because I don't know how much you know about the reading controversies in our country today. Yeah. ⁓ Because that is exactly what's happening. We have kids that really are, you know, they struggle to read and in 11th grade we're asking them to, you know, analyze very, very difficult text. So your analogy with science is perfect.
Colleen Kelley (17:04)
Yeah, I follow them a little bit. Yeah.
Nicholas Simone (17:25)
and makes me want to, you know, get all those comic books to every elementary student in our district right now.
Colleen Kelley (17:32)
Yeah, yeah, and the other thing too with that Nick and thank you is I don't expect the teachers to know chemistry either. So I'm very, it's really important to me when I say ages eight to 108 that I'm including the teachers in this intergenerational learning. Everybody missed the boat, you know. I'm like the one person who didn't miss the boat in chemistry. So let's go back and learn again.
I wouldn't know how to teach music to kids, but I know how to teach, right? So I'd use my classroom strategies, my management strategies, my teaching strategies. And if someone said, is how you teach music to kids, here's this comic book series and games, activities and puzzles, lesson plans that are segmented in five minute sections. Can you give this a try? I would. So I really think it's important.
that everyone understands that I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but it can be. And it can be really fun. And you just have to try it.
Marc Isseks (18:31)
because most of us were taught to muddle through without really having an appreciation for the building blocks that make it beautiful.
Colleen Kelley (18:38)
Right.
Nicholas Simone (18:38)
And what I love about what you're saying, so often people will say, they'll link English and math together and say those are primarily more skill-based. And then they'll say, but science and social studies are more content-based. So we could teach them that at any point. But you're arguing against that. You're saying if we don't have the foundation with kids early on, we can't just throw them into
an advanced chemistry class in ninth or 10th grade and expect them to master it. And that's why so many kids probably go to organic chemistry, which I did not take in college, and they have the nightmare experience that you were referring to. So I love the idea of giving these elementary students that foundation to build off of with these comic strips. Great idea, really.
Colleen Kelley (19:27)
Thank
you.
Marc Isseks (19:27)
You have you have mentioned in your work like the need for big league science for today's kids. Can you explain what that is and and why today's kids perhaps need a different approach to science?
(01:55):
Colleen Kelley (19:41)
Yeah, so this is one of the benefits of being in the classroom with pre-K through fourth graders to see what it is they can receive and digest. And when I talk about big league science, I talk about big concepts and skills that I know will serve them in college. So for example,
My fourth graders were getting ready for science fair, and we were looking at rates of chemical reactions. So they were writing the chemical reaction, balancing it, because they had just finished my comic book unit, so they could do all this. So this would be something that would be a lab in college that they would be doing. But I was using baking soda and vinegar, and the gas involved was blowing up a balloon.
And at no point did I call it a volcano. Because I had one of my students say, Dr. Kelley, what if we just added food coloring? We could call this a volcano. And I just said, is this a volcano? What does a volcano look like? And they told me, they're like, it's hot and has lava. I'm like, is anything hot? Is there any lava? And so we're really getting into this world of like,
Nicholas Simone (20:44)
You
Colleen Kelley (20:56)
making slime and making volcanoes and saying that's chemistry. The best slime maker in the world is not going to pass college chemistry. I can assure you, you have to be able to read. So, big league chemistry is combining the reading, the understanding, and then putting the experiment and using the right words. Kids want to know the real stuff. I go back to my experience at Three Mile Island.
Nicholas Simone (21:06)
You
Colleen Kelley (21:23)
I didn't want to call it raining radiation. I wanted to know what radioactive particles were. Someone could explain it to me. And I think the more robust and rigorous you are with your science and explaining it to kids, the higher they achieve. They want to know that stuff. So big league science is really just...
taking what we can and putting it into the elementary school classrooms and making it real. so baking soda and vinegar is an acid-base reaction. Explain it that way. And so that when they get to biochemistry and they're talking about acids and bases, they'll say, yeah, I know what that is. So I don't know if that makes sense, but it's just a way of teaching that's not so magic show-based.
Marc Isseks (22:07)
You know what I love about what you're describing? Well, first of all, you just completely like destroyed all of my elementary school science experiments and, but you know, I'll get over that part. the way you describe this need for thinking with the, with through a scientist lens or a scientist mindset, why I think it's so critical right now is because you're teaching students to think in an evidence-based way. And we live in a time where,
Nicholas Simone (22:14)
Hahaha!
Marc Isseks (22:37)
That isn't necessarily the case everywhere, just to put it very mildly, where we tend to just believe and use faith over fact very often. it's not boding well for us right now, at least at this particular time, and without getting too deep. But to teach students to do this, they can transfer that skill.
Colleen Kelley (22:45)
Mm-hmm.
No.
Marc Isseks (22:59)
to everything in their digital lives and in their, you know, in their societal lives as well as citizens and wherever they're living. Because very often, and now that we're in an AI era, discerning between fact and fiction is going to become more important than ever. So why not start early with teaching young people how to think in an evidence-based way? It'll help.
in all of their other disciplines and it will also help them as well-informed citizens as well.
Colleen Kelley (23:29)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I agree. am part of molecular literacy or actually the whole point of molecular literacy is a global scientist, you to make global citizens global scientists. I say, you know, chemistry isn't just about science. It's a shared story of everything. And if we want to share our stories and connect with the world, what better way to connect than what the particles that we're all made of. So I really think that globally,
It's the same language, the elements are the same, the chemistry is the same. So it is one of the most fundamental universal languages that we have.
Nicholas Simone (24:04)
When you worked on this series, did you do this all by yourself? Did you have some people help you in terms of reviewing it, giving you some feedback in the process? You know, just know, you know, Marc has written two books and I know that the process is rather daunting to publish works like this.
Colleen Kelley (24:22)
Right, yeah, I started over a decade ago on this process and my original intent was to write these stories as integrated into a chemistry textbook because I thought, this will be such a cool textbook. I'll have these great stories and then I'll have the concepts and they can flip back and forth. But there was no comic book in mind. I had been doing some textbook work and I thought, well, this will be just a great, everyone's going to want this. Well, of course, no one did.
So I got rejection after rejection after rejection. So the pandemic came along shortly after and I took what I had and I thought, well, maybe I can make children's books out of these picture books. So I took courses from highlights. took courses, any online course I could take on writing children's books. And again, that fell flat. They didn't, it's too much science for children's books. ⁓
(02:16):
comic book was kind of what I landed on as the only format that seemed to be acceptable. So, you know, I had to put on a new hat, here I am, Dr. Kelley, comic book author. So I had to learn how to write scripts and how to do all that.
I had the stories and I wrote the scripts and I knew I had them in my brain. But one of my former students, who's a friend of my son's, was going to Savannah College of Art and Design at the time. so Mackenzie became a concept artist with me. she had been in my class at a point. So we could jam back and forth about characters. And then I found a comic book artist who had a team. So then...
Nicholas Simone (25:44)
that's great.
Colleen Kelley (25:54)
I would send the script and the concept characters to the team and he had a team working on it. you know, this book, the series so far as four books took many, many years and they're pretty thick. They're not really a typical comic book. Each one's about 50 pages because there's games and activities and puzzles, much like a highlights magazine in the middle. So there's learning objectives and checks and things like that as you go.
But yeah, so and then I had to find a publisher and I found a publisher. So it all eventually came together, but it took a long time.
Nicholas Simone (26:26)
What a great story though. I didn't realize that the original idea was to just kind of liven up the traditionally boring textbooks that students... Well, this is really going to be such a great experience for any kid that gets a hand on it.
Marc Isseks (26:27)
That's amazing.
Colleen Kelley (26:36)
Yeah.
Marc Isseks (26:43)
When you were taking these classes about the storytelling aspect, what lessons did you take away from that and how did you think to apply them to chemistry and make it so approachable or relevant for a younger audience?
Colleen Kelley (27:00)
That's a great question. don't think there was one thing. I think it was actually really the lesson I learned was to just keep writing and keep editing. So it's just write more, edit more, write more, submit.
get feedback, start again. You know, did learn a little bit about, I didn't know about Lexile because I don't come from an education background, so I learned about what words I can use, can't use, as far as what is a Lexile level. Then I just learned about editing for...
What am I trying to get across? Can I do it in fewer words? My comic book artist would just shake his head. said, this bubble is going to take up the whole page. You have to get a littler bubble. He said, I'm used to putting bam in a bubble, and you've got like 400 words to go in a bubble. So I had to learn about, you
Nicholas Simone (27:50)
Hahaha
Marc Isseks (27:54)
That's great.
Colleen Kelley (27:57)
symmetry in panels and how many panels per page and an arc of a story. So there were quite a few nuggets along the way. And then there were some things that I just ignored and went and did my own thing.
Marc Isseks (28:05)
Doesn't that?
I love the bubble example. It says so much in such a short little snippet. That's teaching. Sometimes we come in with too much and the bubble can't take that much. The bubble is the student. It's not the right medium at that time for that level student. And so you're dealing with the constraints of comic books, but teachers are dealing with constraints also.
And I think that's one of the problems with, as we've shifted to technology and presentation software over the last 20 years, let me use this as an example. When I was starting my teaching journey in the mid 90s, if I were to make a handout, it was on 8 1⁄2 by 11 paper. That was my constraint. So it either fit on the 8 1⁄2 by 11 paper and it was part of my lesson or it did not and it was not part of my lesson.
That was it because we couldn't we weren't allowed to make packets back then we had we were on strict limits on copies. But now with presentation software I have limitless space so I can keep adding to the lesson adding to the lesson adding to the lesson so I feel like as the educator I'm satisfying somehow my curricular obligation to the student but I am not necessarily meeting the students needs as far as what they can learn. And the bubble from your illustrator is like the perfect.
the perfect analogy to kind of express that concept. I think it's so profound.
Colleen Kelley (29:38)
Yeah, yeah, I agree with you on overdoing it and I think all these, you know, PowerPoint, etc., really has allowed us to kind of go a little bit crazy and overboard.
(02:37):
Marc Isseks (29:50)
Or a lot crazy and very overboard. So the storytelling that you find yourself using now, is that in some weird way, like an homage to your chemistry teacher and how he brought chemistry to life through storytelling?
Nicholas Simone (29:52)
Hahaha
Colleen Kelley (30:05)
It is, and I was lucky to continue to learn chemistry from storytellers. As a freshman in college, I remember my...
freshman chemistry professor using skits from Saturday Night Live to illustrate concepts. And I thought, well, this actually makes it fun. as I kept going on in college, I kept running into storytellers. So I don't know if it was fate. So there's an homage to a whole crew of mentors who really taught me chemistry in that way. And I'm very grateful for that. I just kept having
teachers and professors teach in that manner.
Marc Isseks (30:44)
So when you sit down to write a chemistry comic book, what are the first thoughts that hit your mind in terms of how you're going to present a story and how you're going to build this world that will entice young readers to kind of enter it?
Colleen Kelley (31:00)
boy, you know, I don't actually know. I've had this question before about like, what is my process and how do I come up with these? Honestly, it scares me some of these stories because they're so wacky and weird and strange. think, I don't know if I want someone to know that part of my brain. For example, the...
Nicholas Simone (31:16)
Ha ha.
Colleen Kelley (31:18)
The third comic book is a parody on the Princess Bride where they have Lady Xena, the Dread Pirate Clive has, he's chlorine, has Lady Xena locked away and her true love, Carbon, the Six Electron Man has to come rescue her. so it's this whole Princess Bride theme going on there. And a lot of times I think I just...
I do dream and I lay around and I think, I'm like, what would be kind of fun and funny? And then when they're coming, it's a little bit like a muse, a kind of a very strange experience. The fifth comic book isn't published yet, but...
It's called Tetrahedral Love Triangle and it's set in 1970s Hollywood. And I don't know where that came from, but yeah, it has to do with the smog covering the Hollywood sign and you know, they're going to get rid of it. It has to do with some carbon dioxide and gases and things like that. But yeah, they're, on the set of a Hollywood and Sir Carbon is starring in that one as well. So anyway, yeah, they just.
Marc Isseks (32:12)
Amazing.
It's a recurring
character.
Colleen Kelley (32:25)
Yeah, I have some recurring characters and that helps but the I like the way that they're not You know at no point Does it seem like it's chemistry? You know, there's a princess bride setting There's a Hollywood setting the fourth comic book They travel to a rock concert to save the vanishing Van Gogh starry night is vanishing and they go to a rock concert to raise awareness for the vanishing Van Gogh
And of course, the heavy metals are playing and the lead singer is Led Ze. I mean, props to Led Ze and you know, we've got Freddie Mercury on the drums. So yeah, so it's just, you know, I think of things that would be corny, fun and funny and just grab things from there. So it's an imagination. you know, I really do credit years of reading.
Marc Isseks (32:53)
Ha
Nicholas Simone (33:01)
Wow.
Colleen Kelley (33:13)
for all this because I have a lot of stories to draw off of and then kind of twist and make my own.
Nicholas Simone (33:20)
You certainly have the official title of best retirement job ever. No question, this is really exciting and so enjoyable. And you're have such an amazing impact. This is a great idea.
Colleen Kelley (33:27)
Thank you.
(02:58):
Thank you.
Marc Isseks (33:34)
What's been the best reaction that you've received so far from one of your young readers?
Colleen Kelley (33:38)
It's a subtle reaction. It's when they're reading and you watch their shoulders going up and down and you know they're laughing. And the other thing is, and I've taken pictures of this, is...
Every time I get the books out in my classroom and they're reading, nobody's in their seats. If you're a teacher, you know what I mean. When their butts are out of their seat and they're laying on top of their desk with their nose on their books and you want to tell them, sit on your seat with your feet on the ground. But I don't because their chests are laying on the table and that's the body language I see across the board. As soon as they come up, they're up and over the table. It's like they want to dive into the story and
Marc Isseks (34:19)
Amazing.
Colleen Kelley (34:19)
they love that and they'll read it to each other. So sometimes they'll share a book and they'll read aloud to each other. So there's just this very subtle body language that tells me there's no place in the world they'd rather be than with that book in that moment.
Marc Isseks (34:34)
incredible. That's really wonderful.
Nicholas Simone (34:35)
Do you, when
you're sitting down like writing these, I know you said, you know, just keep writing and editing and writing and editing, but do you let the science drive the story more or do you have the background story and then try to infuse the science into it?
Colleen Kelley (34:52)
I would say to anyone who's trying to do this and to myself that you really can't put a division the two. The two have to come together seamlessly or it's not gonna work. So it can't be science driven, it can't be story driven. And that's where I think I've definitely hit the sweet spot. It's not a story about molecules written in comic book format.
nor is it just a story with an occasional molecule. It's so integrated that it's seamless. And that's where I think the authenticity comes about with the story.
Nicholas Simone (35:26)
That's great.
Marc Isseks (35:28)
has to be so difficult to craft. I'm just thinking about it artistically because you have to constantly be wondering, you know, exactly how to, to pull that off. It's a difficult trick to pull off and you have to, you have to ace, you have to really, it has to run all the way through. Otherwise you show your hand and you don't want to do that.
Colleen Kelley (35:32)
Yeah, artistically it's a challenge.
Yeah, you can't
show your hand. Yep.
Marc Isseks (35:48)
Do you, would you mind like sharing like a little snippet of something with the audience?
Colleen Kelley (35:53)
sure,
This is one of my favorite segments from File 3, the case of the pillaging pirates that is, like I said, it's a parody on the Princess Bride.
And so what you have ⁓ on this page is Big Ox is one of ⁓ Pirate Clive's henchmen, and Big Ox is oxygen, and he's rowing in the shore on this kind of red inner tube that is actually the element iron.
And so iron oxide is actually a compound. So iron does carry oxygen in the body in the form of hemoglobin. And then outside the body, iron oxide is rust. So there's so much chemistry just on big ox paddling in on the iron.
(03:19):
⁓ But it doesn't look like that. It just looks like he has a goofy inner tube. And then in black is the man in black. Of course you have to have the man in black. And the man in black is Sir Carbon. And carbon is black. ⁓ It's, you know, coal or, you know, graphene or graphite. And so he has the right coloring. And so Big Ox asks him... ⁓
So he says, forgive me, but I have to ask you, do you have six electrons? And he says, yes, I have six electrons. Why do you ask? And so carbon does have six electrons. And so he is the six electron man. So there's just a ton of chemistry happening on this page without one element symbol.
Nicholas Simone (37:09)
you
Marc Isseks (37:09)
Hahaha
Colleen Kelley (37:24)
And so Big Ox throws the inner tube at him and he says, somehow I feel like I'm supposed to say all my life I've been looking for the six electron man. My name is in oxygenomantoya. You killed my father prepared to die. And then he qualifies that, none of that is true. Clive just told us to stop you. So if you don't mind, we'll just get you over here.
Nicholas Simone (37:37)
Haha
Wow.
Colleen Kelley (37:48)
And then he talks Big Ox into joining him and Big Ox and Red and Rusty become double agents. ⁓ And the story goes on from there. But I think this is just a great example of how you can seamlessly put a ton of chemistry on a page without any kind of ⁓ in your face, like this is happening. And so there's a lot to be learned from that.
Nicholas Simone (38:16)
It most definitely is. That's brilliant.
Marc Isseks (38:19)
It's brilliant. And such a great takeoff
Colleen Kelley (38:19)
Thank you all so much.
Marc Isseks (38:21)
of one of my favorite movies of all time. I love that.
Colleen Kelley (38:22)
Me too.
Nicholas Simone (38:26)
That's great.
Marc Isseks (38:28)
You should send that to Christopher Guest. He played the Six Finger Man.
Nicholas Simone (38:30)
You should do...
Colleen Kelley (38:32)
he did? Okay, I was like...
Nicholas Simone (38:36)
Any plans for an audiobook? You do? Okay.
Colleen Kelley (38:40)
We have them. So we have free audio
books available. I partnered with What If World podcast for kids and he's brilliant. His name is Eric O'Keefe. He's the host of the show and he makes voiceovers. He's a stand up comedian improv kind of guy. And so kids will call into a show and say, you know, what if the world was run by bananas and he'll improv that on his show. So he's very funny. But what he did with my books is he'll take those characters that you just saw and voiceover for
each of them. And he also elevates the story. He's much younger, so he's funnier, adds a little bit more relevant humor. yeah, so those are available for free. And what I love about
(03:40):
The experience of if a child is reading the book and then I've got the audible on in the background that's voiceover characters, some of my more neurodivergent students and lower readers then are brought right up to the same level. So while you're listening and you're reading and you're looking at the pictures, everybody is having a very similar experience. So if you want to create that in your classroom and literally keep everyone on the same page, you can have the audible going while they're reading.
at the same time and they really love that. It's a little bit like the first time I read Harry Potter and then you go to the movie. So I usually have them read the book first and then hear Eric's rendition of the voices and they say, didn't expect Big Ox to sound like that. So it's that nice experience.
Marc Isseks (40:10)
Because graphic novels and comic books are so accessible to young readers, you mentioned lowering the barriers to entry and then that's exactly what graphic novels and comic books do. So you're hitting on all the right notes. Wonderful. Where could educators and parents find your comic books?
Colleen Kelley (40:30)
So for now, they're only available on my website. So kidschemicalsolutions.com. And there's links to purchase with descriptions of everything that's offered. They are being published by Hewitt Learning. So when you go to my website and click, it'll take you to Hewitt Learning as well. So hewittlearning.org has them. I think they're easier to find, though, on my website because Hewitt Learning has other products.
Nicholas Simone (40:55)
great product, we'll spread the word to as many people as we can. And every elementary superintendent in the country should be purchasing these because it really is precisely what we need to engage kids at a young age. And of course, teach them a little bit of science and reading and have fun along the way. It's the perfect product. Well done, congrats, congrats.
Colleen Kelley (41:17)
Thank you. Thank
you. Thank you.
Marc Isseks (41:20)
Thank you so much for sharing it with us and for taking the time to join us on the podcast today. We really, really appreciate it.
Colleen Kelley (41:26)
Yeah, thank you for having me on the show. It's been great.
Nicholas Simone (41:30)
Thank you very much. My AP chemistry teacher was a wonderful man, Mr. McManus, and the two of you would have gotten along very, very well. So now I have two great chemistry teachers, I know.
Colleen Kelley (41:40)
Yeah.
Marc Isseks (41:40)
If you'd like to check out previous episodes of State of Ed Podcast, you can find us on the web at stateofedpodcast.com. You could also check us out on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or anywhere else that you find podcasts. You can also follow me on Twitter @marcisseks Marc or marcisseks.com on YouTube at edu.pyro, E-D-U-P-Y-R-O, or check out my book, Captivate, Engaging and Empowering Students in a World of Digital Distractions, available on Amazon.
Again, Dr. Kelley, thank you so much and we will absolutely post all of your links and information so our audience can find you and find your comics and all the amazing work that you've been doing and hopefully we will help you spread all this incredible molecular literacy out into the world for our young learners all over.
Colleen Kelley (42:24)
Thank you.
Colleen Kelley (00:00)
not everybody has access to being able to perform, right? Because that's not what we're trained to do, especially in higher education. And I would argue why it's so important is because when I get my students to laugh, when I'm goofy, when I talk about, this is how we're going to attach Gingy's leg back on from Shrek using these chemicals, you know, and then all of sudden their mind goes to Shrek.
and they think of that scene with Gingy or wherever I go to in crazy places in my lecture, I'm relaxing them. And we know that a relaxed brain is an open mind. And I can get the concepts in so much stronger. So if I really want them to learn, I need to get them in a place that they can learn. And so laughter opens the mind.
Marc Isseks (01:05)
Welcome to State of Ed, a podcast about education inside the classroom and out. My name is Marc Isseks How are you today, Nick?
Nicholas Simone (01:11)
And I'm Nick Simone.
Doing very well, yourself.
Marc Isseks (01:15)
Doing great. It is late May here in New York and we are
on the verge of ending this school year over the next few weeks. And as everybody in education knows, this school year does not wind down one bit. It ramps up and continues to ramp up until you are finally let off the roller coaster ride at the very, end. so that's kind of where we are right now is in those final wild turns around on that ride. So, but happy to be here and super excited about our guests.
Our guest today is Dr. Colleen Kelley, a retired professor of chemistry at the University of Arizona. She's also the creator of a series of comic books designed to inspire children to become fascinated with the magic of chemistry. Yes, you heard that correctly. This labor of love for Dr. Kelley led to a TEDx talk and was featured in a PBS documentary entitled Comic Book Chemistry, which was awarded an Emmy. Dr. Kelley holds a PhD in chemistry from Penn State University.
Dr. Kelley, you missed your cue. ⁓ Was awarded.
Colleen Kelley (02:19)
I
Nicholas Simone (02:20)
Hehehehehe
Marc Isseks (02:21)
was awarded a Chateaubriand Fellowship to conduct research at University Pasteur in Strasbourg, France, under the direction of Nobel Prize winner Jean-Marie Len. She has published four chemistry textbooks and over 30 peer-reviewed articles. We can't wait to dive into this conversation with Dr. Kelley. Dr. Kelley, welcome to State of Ed.
Colleen Kelley (02:43)
thank you. It's great to be here, Marc.
Marc Isseks (02:45)
So Penn State, right? We threw out, I tried to put it on a T for you, but you were so good. You were waiting for the intro as we had discussed. So I'm sorry.
Nicholas Simone (02:46)
Yeah.
Colleen Kelley (02:47)
Hahaha!
Nicholas Simone (02:54)
She's probably
more loyal to the University of Arizona now.
Colleen Kelley (02:58)
No, no, I'm born and raised in Pennsylvania and yeah, I was going to Penn State football games since I could walk. So the fact that I ended up in graduate school there was a little bit strange for me. I didn't expect to, I wanted to see the world and there I was back in state college, but it was an amazing experience. So it's in my blood, Nick.
Nicholas Simone (03:02)
Okay.
you
(00:31):
Okay, okay.
Marc Isseks (03:20)
I can only imagine. And I will absolutely hold aside the fact that my son is a Hoosier and that's a Big Ten rival of Penn State. So we won't let that get in the way of our conversation today, I promise. So can you, since you were talking about your roots, can you kind of take us through what sparked your interest in chemistry of all the disciplines?
Colleen Kelley (03:31)
Okay.
Right, yeah, so I am a first generation college student and really wasn't in an environment where education was valued or expected. I just went to school like any other kid in central Pennsylvania. And then in March of 1979, I remember being in my seventh grade English class and the loudspeakers went off and there was this announcement that was kind of muddled and it said school is closing.
because it's raining radiation. And we were so excited because we're seventh graders. We ran to the windows and we flung them open and we hung our heads out and we're searching the skies for this magical and mystical raining radiation with just such enthusiasm. Yeah, well, we were like, this could be the coolest thing ever. And then school was closed. We were sent home on the buses and...
Marc Isseks (04:11)
You
Nicholas Simone (04:12)
Wow.
Marc Isseks (04:24)
which is exactly what you want to do when it's raining radiation. You want to stick your head out the window.
Colleen Kelley (04:34)
I remember getting off the bus and our bus driver told us, said, take your jackets and put them over your heads, kind of like umbrellas, to shield yourself from nuclear fallout. Okay, so I can assure you none of our jackets were made of lead, but we all did that and ran home joyfully like, this is like incredible. And I burst through the doors and I just...
told everyone at home that this is the best day ever, school's closing. Seems like maybe forever. It's raining radiation and what other good things could happen except for apparently, according to the news, it's raining radiation like two miles from my house. I'm like, that's so cool, it's so close. Like we're really gonna get to see this. And it turns out that was the near nuclear accident at Three Mile Island. So what sparked my interest
was I remember sitting there and watching the news and watching Barbara Walters and hearing her say radioactive particles and cooling towers. I like, what are these words? So I asked my parents and they're like, well, it's serious and we have to evacuate. And that's all they said. I said, but why? And their answer was because. And that because changed my life because...
I thought somebody has got to be able to explain this to me. And I was already a very curious little girl and I read a ton. I read every book I could get my hands on, mysteries mostly, Agatha Christie, that genre. And I thought, well, this is a mystery to solve. And there are these like invisible enemies called radioactive particles and chemicals. And I wanted to solve this problem. when it came time in school to learn chemistry,
I thought, finally, I get to know more about this, and just really started to pay more attention to chemistry and then kind of connect it with my love for reading and mysteries and putting that all together.
Nicholas Simone (06:34)
Wow. Dr. Kelley, I taught AP US history for most of my career. So the extent of my teaching about Three Mile Island was to give them what the answer is on the multiple choice test. I can't believe this is the first firsthand account that I ever heard from Three Mile Island. would have elevated my lessons tremendously.
Colleen Kelley (06:39)
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
Marc Isseks (06:45)
You
Colleen Kelley (06:50)
you
Well,
next time you teach it, I'll hop on a Zoom. ⁓
Nicholas Simone (06:58)
Absolutely, that's fascinating,
(00:52):
wow.
Marc Isseks (07:01)
Can I ask a question when you finally got to chemistry and you had this long awaited opportunity to have these questions answered, were you disappointed that it was just sort of like the curriculum being presented to you or did you have the good fortune of having a really dynamic chemistry teacher who really just poured gasoline on your fire of curiosity?
Colleen Kelley (07:24)
Yeah,
the second, I was quite shy in high school and read a lot. And I feel like my chemistry teacher was the first teacher that I actually connected with and that saw me and saw how like I just, couldn't get enough of it. I always tell the story. This is all right to your audience, know, disclaimer, this happened a long time ago, but I was on the swim team and I used to do everybody's chemistry homework. I couldn't get enough of it. I mean, we'd be on the bus to an away meet and everybody would be
hand
in their homework over to me and I'd be doing it. And it was the most fun I could possibly have. I would go to the pool and before swim practice, they'd say, hey, can you work these problems? Here you go. But it was because my teacher was so good and he understood that I love solving problems and the language just spoke to me. And again, I wasn't brought up in a...
Marc Isseks (07:57)
Where were you when I needed you?
Colleen Kelley (08:16)
environment where there were other scientists around. I didn't know any other scientists, but I knew Hercule Perrault Poirot stories and knew he looked at clues. I just liked solving puzzles. That's where it all came about. I definitely credit my high school chemistry teacher for igniting the fire.
Nicholas Simone (08:33)
That's great.
Marc Isseks (08:33)
If you don't mind me
asking, What was it about the way that chemistry was taught by that teacher that ignited the fire for you?
Colleen Kelley (08:40)
It's something that I adopted in my own classrooms years later. He acted. And so if he wanted to show an electron changing energy levels, he would jump from desk to desk, literally. Like we were afraid he was going to fall on us. But he had such energy. And what he did is something that I adopted that eventually became my comic books, is he told stories around them while he was acting. So it became a...
performance that was robust and rigorous and gave me the foundation to eventually go to college and major in chemistry and do well. So he didn't truncate or dilute any learning, but it was just the energy that day after day after day and humor and then the ability to kind of see us all as
who we were, like really make eye contact with students and tell the stories like that.
Nicholas Simone (09:31)
So when you were teaching in the college, how many years did you spend teaching in college?
Colleen Kelley (09:35)
Thirty
Yeah.
Nicholas Simone (09:36)
Did you
teach that to primarily chemistry majors or was it a mixture of kids that maybe needed a science requirement for college?
Colleen Kelley (09:46)
Yes, I taught to the thousands and thousands of students who didn't want to be in front of me at all.
Nicholas Simone (09:52)
You read my
(01:13):
mind. ⁓
Colleen Kelley (09:53)
Yeah, I always
tell the story about how excited I was going into an auditorium of 200 people for my very first lecture. And at this point I was teaching at Northern Arizona University and how excited, like I thought it was going to change their lives. And I walked in and I quickly realized they were looking at me like a female Darth Vader of sorts. I thought, man, not only is it 8 a.m. and there's 200 of you, but you really don't like me.
Nicholas Simone (10:14)
Ha ha ha.
Colleen Kelley (10:20)
and I've not met you yet.
Nicholas Simone (10:21)
That's great.
Marc Isseks (10:24)
the
opposite of Sally Field at the Oscars.
Colleen Kelley (10:26)
Yeah,
exactly.
Nicholas Simone (10:28)
So I'm assuming that that was a bit of a challenge in the beginning of your career.
Colleen Kelley (10:33)
You know, year after year, I mean, you have this very skeptical audience year after year that doesn't change. Chemistry needs a huge rebranding and that's part of what I'm trying to do. But up until then, they're being told by their roommates, their parents, oh, yuck, you have to take that? Good luck, dude. And then they come into me and I have to dislodge all of that lore and culture that tells them it's just gonna be a horrible experience.
Marc Isseks (11:01)
I love that when you were describing your chemistry teacher, you spoke about how energetic and how we infused storytelling. It was almost like a form of entertainment. And I know that this is a sore spot for some educators because they feel like they're, they're not there to entertain students. They're there to teach students. So what do you say to those educators who are kind of like reluctant to, put
that foot forward, if you will, in the classroom and kind of lean into the performance art of teaching as opposed to just the transferring of knowledge.
Colleen Kelley (11:32)
I understand that stance for sure. And not everybody has access to being able to perform, right? Because that's not what we're trained to do, especially in higher education. And I would argue why it's so important is because when I get my students to laugh, when I'm goofy, when I talk about, this is how we're going to attach Gingy's leg back on from Shrek using these chemicals, you know, and then all of sudden their mind goes to Shrek.
and they think of that scene with Gingy or wherever I go to in crazy places in my lecture, I'm relaxing them. And we know that a relaxed brain is an open mind. And I can get the concepts in so much stronger. So if I really want them to learn, I need to get them in a place that they can learn. And so laughter opens the mind.
humor, performance, they're engaged a little bit more. So all of these tricks to open up neural pathways to receive information and assemble them, we should use all of them. So whether it's being soft, kind.
making eye contact with them. Even if it's 200 students, I walk up and down the auditorium, look at their papers, chat with them, say, did you see the game last night? That kind of thing. So all of these things are creating an environment. And it's the environment that's, for me, that I need to be relaxed because otherwise the other barriers for chemistry especially are so high that I don't have a chance for them to learn anything in my room.
Nicholas Simone (13:03)
So with what you just said, can you describe your journey from, you said 30 years in a college environment to wanting to teach science to four to 12 year olds and create these chemistry comic books and curriculum?
Colleen Kelley (13:18)
Yeah, so, you know, year after year, I told you the story or shared the story about students looking at me like a female Darth Vader. And I'm looking back at this audience of mainly pre-meds. They're not chemistry majors, but they want to excel in life and they've got big goals. They might be engineering majors, they might be pre-med, they might be nursing. But most of these kids have received A's since they could tie their shoes. And they have A's in every other class.
And they're just excellent and they're motivated. And so I don't have any of those other barriers that maybe other faculty might have like, well, they're just not studying hard enough. Everybody there is an overachiever. And then they get to organic chemistry and all of a sudden, Goodwill Hunting had it correct. If you go back and watch that movie, the scene about organic chemistry is totally true. So.
(01:34):
And all of sudden they are deflated. They're getting a C or a D and they don't understand why.
I really had to uncover what's happening with this group of students. And I couldn't use the traditional reasoning of not studying hard enough, they're slacking, blah, So I had to really ask the question is why are they not succeeding in chemistry? And years of research came to the fact that they were coming to college and for the most part were molecularly illiterate. And molecular literacy,
is a term that I coined with my research where really we need to teach chemistry like we teach reading because learning chemistry is like learning to read. So imagine if we delayed teaching the alphabet until a child was in 11th or 12th grade and then sent them to college and had them analyze Hemingway their freshman year. Right? That's precisely what we're doing with chemistry. They might see their first periodic table in high school.
and then we launch them. And so they have no time to develop literacy. We know literacy takes decades, and the same is true for molecular literacy. And once I realized that they were having this form of illiteracy, it changes everything, right? Because if someone can't read, you have to start at the beginning.
And so I thought, well, where do kids really transition from learning to read to reading to learn? And that's about third grade. And I thought, well, if we look at the periodic table as the alphabet of science.
and take two elements and put them together to make a formula, which is a word, and use the same strategies that they have just used for learning to read, for learning chemistry, what would happen. And that's where I really wanted to get in front of younger audiences. So when I could retire, I did, because I really wanted then to get down to what happens with these younger brains who are at the same spot that the 20-year-olds are.
And sometimes I use a music analogy. We know the best time to teach music to children is right around eight years old or maybe even younger. Right. And so if they hadn't learned music yet, they're going to start where the eight year olds start. whether you're 28 or 108, you're all starting at the beginning. So it's a beginner's mindset. So really the little, the, I call them my littles, my elementary school students.
are at the same spot as my college students. They're just in smaller bodies. But they have bigger brains in some ways because they have huge imagination still.
Nicholas Simone (16:57)
Wow, that was very powerful because I don't know how much you know about the reading controversies in our country today. Yeah. ⁓ Because that is exactly what's happening. We have kids that really are, you know, they struggle to read and in 11th grade we're asking them to, you know, analyze very, very difficult text. So your analogy with science is perfect.
Colleen Kelley (17:04)
Yeah, I follow them a little bit. Yeah.
Nicholas Simone (17:25)
and makes me want to, you know, get all those comic books to every elementary student in our district right now.
Colleen Kelley (17:32)
Yeah, yeah, and the other thing too with that Nick and thank you is I don't expect the teachers to know chemistry either. So I'm very, it's really important to me when I say ages eight to 108 that I'm including the teachers in this intergenerational learning. Everybody missed the boat, you know. I'm like the one person who didn't miss the boat in chemistry. So let's go back and learn again.
I wouldn't know how to teach music to kids, but I know how to teach, right? So I'd use my classroom strategies, my management strategies, my teaching strategies. And if someone said, is how you teach music to kids, here's this comic book series and games, activities and puzzles, lesson plans that are segmented in five minute sections. Can you give this a try? I would. So I really think it's important.
that everyone understands that I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but it can be. And it can be really fun. And you just have to try it.
Marc Isseks (18:31)
because most of us were taught to muddle through without really having an appreciation for the building blocks that make it beautiful.
Colleen Kelley (18:38)
Right.
Nicholas Simone (18:38)
And what I love about what you're saying, so often people will say, they'll link English and math together and say those are primarily more skill-based. And then they'll say, but science and social studies are more content-based. So we could teach them that at any point. But you're arguing against that. You're saying if we don't have the foundation with kids early on, we can't just throw them into
an advanced chemistry class in ninth or 10th grade and expect them to master it. And that's why so many kids probably go to organic chemistry, which I did not take in college, and they have the nightmare experience that you were referring to. So I love the idea of giving these elementary students that foundation to build off of with these comic strips. Great idea, really.
Colleen Kelley (19:27)
Thank
you.
Marc Isseks (19:27)
You have you have mentioned in your work like the need for big league science for today's kids. Can you explain what that is and and why today's kids perhaps need a different approach to science?
(01:55):
Colleen Kelley (19:41)
Yeah, so this is one of the benefits of being in the classroom with pre-K through fourth graders to see what it is they can receive and digest. And when I talk about big league science, I talk about big concepts and skills that I know will serve them in college. So for example,
My fourth graders were getting ready for science fair, and we were looking at rates of chemical reactions. So they were writing the chemical reaction, balancing it, because they had just finished my comic book unit, so they could do all this. So this would be something that would be a lab in college that they would be doing. But I was using baking soda and vinegar, and the gas involved was blowing up a balloon.
And at no point did I call it a volcano. Because I had one of my students say, Dr. Kelley, what if we just added food coloring? We could call this a volcano. And I just said, is this a volcano? What does a volcano look like? And they told me, they're like, it's hot and has lava. I'm like, is anything hot? Is there any lava? And so we're really getting into this world of like,
Nicholas Simone (20:44)
You
Colleen Kelley (20:56)
making slime and making volcanoes and saying that's chemistry. The best slime maker in the world is not going to pass college chemistry. I can assure you, you have to be able to read. So, big league chemistry is combining the reading, the understanding, and then putting the experiment and using the right words. Kids want to know the real stuff. I go back to my experience at Three Mile Island.
Nicholas Simone (21:06)
You
Colleen Kelley (21:23)
I didn't want to call it raining radiation. I wanted to know what radioactive particles were. Someone could explain it to me. And I think the more robust and rigorous you are with your science and explaining it to kids, the higher they achieve. They want to know that stuff. So big league science is really just...
taking what we can and putting it into the elementary school classrooms and making it real. so baking soda and vinegar is an acid-base reaction. Explain it that way. And so that when they get to biochemistry and they're talking about acids and bases, they'll say, yeah, I know what that is. So I don't know if that makes sense, but it's just a way of teaching that's not so magic show-based.
Marc Isseks (22:07)
You know what I love about what you're describing? Well, first of all, you just completely like destroyed all of my elementary school science experiments and, but you know, I'll get over that part. the way you describe this need for thinking with the, with through a scientist lens or a scientist mindset, why I think it's so critical right now is because you're teaching students to think in an evidence-based way. And we live in a time where,
Nicholas Simone (22:14)
Hahaha!
Marc Isseks (22:37)
That isn't necessarily the case everywhere, just to put it very mildly, where we tend to just believe and use faith over fact very often. it's not boding well for us right now, at least at this particular time, and without getting too deep. But to teach students to do this, they can transfer that skill.
Colleen Kelley (22:45)
Mm-hmm.
No.
Marc Isseks (22:59)
to everything in their digital lives and in their, you know, in their societal lives as well as citizens and wherever they're living. Because very often, and now that we're in an AI era, discerning between fact and fiction is going to become more important than ever. So why not start early with teaching young people how to think in an evidence-based way? It'll help.
in all of their other disciplines and it will also help them as well-informed citizens as well.
Colleen Kelley (23:29)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I agree. am part of molecular literacy or actually the whole point of molecular literacy is a global scientist, you to make global citizens global scientists. I say, you know, chemistry isn't just about science. It's a shared story of everything. And if we want to share our stories and connect with the world, what better way to connect than what the particles that we're all made of. So I really think that globally,
It's the same language, the elements are the same, the chemistry is the same. So it is one of the most fundamental universal languages that we have.
Nicholas Simone (24:04)
When you worked on this series, did you do this all by yourself? Did you have some people help you in terms of reviewing it, giving you some feedback in the process? You know, just know, you know, Marc has written two books and I know that the process is rather daunting to publish works like this.
Colleen Kelley (24:22)
Right, yeah, I started over a decade ago on this process and my original intent was to write these stories as integrated into a chemistry textbook because I thought, this will be such a cool textbook. I'll have these great stories and then I'll have the concepts and they can flip back and forth. But there was no comic book in mind. I had been doing some textbook work and I thought, well, this will be just a great, everyone's going to want this. Well, of course, no one did.
So I got rejection after rejection after rejection. So the pandemic came along shortly after and I took what I had and I thought, well, maybe I can make children's books out of these picture books. So I took courses from highlights. took courses, any online course I could take on writing children's books. And again, that fell flat. They didn't, it's too much science for children's books. ⁓
(02:16):
comic book was kind of what I landed on as the only format that seemed to be acceptable. So, you know, I had to put on a new hat, here I am, Dr. Kelley, comic book author. So I had to learn how to write scripts and how to do all that.
I had the stories and I wrote the scripts and I knew I had them in my brain. But one of my former students, who's a friend of my son's, was going to Savannah College of Art and Design at the time. so Mackenzie became a concept artist with me. she had been in my class at a point. So we could jam back and forth about characters. And then I found a comic book artist who had a team. So then...
Nicholas Simone (25:44)
that's great.
Colleen Kelley (25:54)
I would send the script and the concept characters to the team and he had a team working on it. you know, this book, the series so far as four books took many, many years and they're pretty thick. They're not really a typical comic book. Each one's about 50 pages because there's games and activities and puzzles, much like a highlights magazine in the middle. So there's learning objectives and checks and things like that as you go.
But yeah, so and then I had to find a publisher and I found a publisher. So it all eventually came together, but it took a long time.
Nicholas Simone (26:26)
What a great story though. I didn't realize that the original idea was to just kind of liven up the traditionally boring textbooks that students... Well, this is really going to be such a great experience for any kid that gets a hand on it.
Marc Isseks (26:27)
That's amazing.
Colleen Kelley (26:36)
Yeah.
Marc Isseks (26:43)
When you were taking these classes about the storytelling aspect, what lessons did you take away from that and how did you think to apply them to chemistry and make it so approachable or relevant for a younger audience?
Colleen Kelley (27:00)
That's a great question. don't think there was one thing. I think it was actually really the lesson I learned was to just keep writing and keep editing. So it's just write more, edit more, write more, submit.
get feedback, start again. You know, did learn a little bit about, I didn't know about Lexile because I don't come from an education background, so I learned about what words I can use, can't use, as far as what is a Lexile level. Then I just learned about editing for...
What am I trying to get across? Can I do it in fewer words? My comic book artist would just shake his head. said, this bubble is going to take up the whole page. You have to get a littler bubble. He said, I'm used to putting bam in a bubble, and you've got like 400 words to go in a bubble. So I had to learn about, you
Nicholas Simone (27:50)
Hahaha
Marc Isseks (27:54)
That's great.
Colleen Kelley (27:57)
symmetry in panels and how many panels per page and an arc of a story. So there were quite a few nuggets along the way. And then there were some things that I just ignored and went and did my own thing.
Marc Isseks (28:05)
Doesn't that?
I love the bubble example. It says so much in such a short little snippet. That's teaching. Sometimes we come in with too much and the bubble can't take that much. The bubble is the student. It's not the right medium at that time for that level student. And so you're dealing with the constraints of comic books, but teachers are dealing with constraints also.
And I think that's one of the problems with, as we've shifted to technology and presentation software over the last 20 years, let me use this as an example. When I was starting my teaching journey in the mid 90s, if I were to make a handout, it was on 8 1⁄2 by 11 paper. That was my constraint. So it either fit on the 8 1⁄2 by 11 paper and it was part of my lesson or it did not and it was not part of my lesson.
That was it because we couldn't we weren't allowed to make packets back then we had we were on strict limits on copies. But now with presentation software I have limitless space so I can keep adding to the lesson adding to the lesson adding to the lesson so I feel like as the educator I'm satisfying somehow my curricular obligation to the student but I am not necessarily meeting the students needs as far as what they can learn. And the bubble from your illustrator is like the perfect.
the perfect analogy to kind of express that concept. I think it's so profound.
Colleen Kelley (29:38)
Yeah, yeah, I agree with you on overdoing it and I think all these, you know, PowerPoint, etc., really has allowed us to kind of go a little bit crazy and overboard.
(02:37):
Marc Isseks (29:50)
Or a lot crazy and very overboard. So the storytelling that you find yourself using now, is that in some weird way, like an homage to your chemistry teacher and how he brought chemistry to life through storytelling?
Nicholas Simone (29:52)
Hahaha
Colleen Kelley (30:05)
It is, and I was lucky to continue to learn chemistry from storytellers. As a freshman in college, I remember my...
freshman chemistry professor using skits from Saturday Night Live to illustrate concepts. And I thought, well, this actually makes it fun. as I kept going on in college, I kept running into storytellers. So I don't know if it was fate. So there's an homage to a whole crew of mentors who really taught me chemistry in that way. And I'm very grateful for that. I just kept having
teachers and professors teach in that manner.
Marc Isseks (30:44)
So when you sit down to write a chemistry comic book, what are the first thoughts that hit your mind in terms of how you're going to present a story and how you're going to build this world that will entice young readers to kind of enter it?
Colleen Kelley (31:00)
boy, you know, I don't actually know. I've had this question before about like, what is my process and how do I come up with these? Honestly, it scares me some of these stories because they're so wacky and weird and strange. think, I don't know if I want someone to know that part of my brain. For example, the...
Nicholas Simone (31:16)
Ha ha.
Colleen Kelley (31:18)
The third comic book is a parody on the Princess Bride where they have Lady Xena, the Dread Pirate Clive has, he's chlorine, has Lady Xena locked away and her true love, Carbon, the Six Electron Man has to come rescue her. so it's this whole Princess Bride theme going on there. And a lot of times I think I just...
I do dream and I lay around and I think, I'm like, what would be kind of fun and funny? And then when they're coming, it's a little bit like a muse, a kind of a very strange experience. The fifth comic book isn't published yet, but...
It's called Tetrahedral Love Triangle and it's set in 1970s Hollywood. And I don't know where that came from, but yeah, it has to do with the smog covering the Hollywood sign and you know, they're going to get rid of it. It has to do with some carbon dioxide and gases and things like that. But yeah, they're, on the set of a Hollywood and Sir Carbon is starring in that one as well. So anyway, yeah, they just.
Marc Isseks (32:12)
Amazing.
It's a recurring
character.
Colleen Kelley (32:25)
Yeah, I have some recurring characters and that helps but the I like the way that they're not You know at no point Does it seem like it's chemistry? You know, there's a princess bride setting There's a Hollywood setting the fourth comic book They travel to a rock concert to save the vanishing Van Gogh starry night is vanishing and they go to a rock concert to raise awareness for the vanishing Van Gogh
And of course, the heavy metals are playing and the lead singer is Led Ze. I mean, props to Led Ze and you know, we've got Freddie Mercury on the drums. So yeah, so it's just, you know, I think of things that would be corny, fun and funny and just grab things from there. So it's an imagination. you know, I really do credit years of reading.
Marc Isseks (32:53)
Ha
Nicholas Simone (33:01)
Wow.
Colleen Kelley (33:13)
for all this because I have a lot of stories to draw off of and then kind of twist and make my own.
Nicholas Simone (33:20)
You certainly have the official title of best retirement job ever. No question, this is really exciting and so enjoyable. And you're have such an amazing impact. This is a great idea.
Colleen Kelley (33:27)
Thank you.
(02:58):
Thank you.
Marc Isseks (33:34)
What's been the best reaction that you've received so far from one of your young readers?
Colleen Kelley (33:38)
It's a subtle reaction. It's when they're reading and you watch their shoulders going up and down and you know they're laughing. And the other thing is, and I've taken pictures of this, is...
Every time I get the books out in my classroom and they're reading, nobody's in their seats. If you're a teacher, you know what I mean. When their butts are out of their seat and they're laying on top of their desk with their nose on their books and you want to tell them, sit on your seat with your feet on the ground. But I don't because their chests are laying on the table and that's the body language I see across the board. As soon as they come up, they're up and over the table. It's like they want to dive into the story and
Marc Isseks (34:19)
Amazing.
Colleen Kelley (34:19)
they love that and they'll read it to each other. So sometimes they'll share a book and they'll read aloud to each other. So there's just this very subtle body language that tells me there's no place in the world they'd rather be than with that book in that moment.
Marc Isseks (34:34)
incredible. That's really wonderful.
Nicholas Simone (34:35)
Do you, when
you're sitting down like writing these, I know you said, you know, just keep writing and editing and writing and editing, but do you let the science drive the story more or do you have the background story and then try to infuse the science into it?
Colleen Kelley (34:52)
I would say to anyone who's trying to do this and to myself that you really can't put a division the two. The two have to come together seamlessly or it's not gonna work. So it can't be science driven, it can't be story driven. And that's where I think I've definitely hit the sweet spot. It's not a story about molecules written in comic book format.
nor is it just a story with an occasional molecule. It's so integrated that it's seamless. And that's where I think the authenticity comes about with the story.
Nicholas Simone (35:26)
That's great.
Marc Isseks (35:28)
has to be so difficult to craft. I'm just thinking about it artistically because you have to constantly be wondering, you know, exactly how to, to pull that off. It's a difficult trick to pull off and you have to, you have to ace, you have to really, it has to run all the way through. Otherwise you show your hand and you don't want to do that.
Colleen Kelley (35:32)
Yeah, artistically it's a challenge.
Yeah, you can't
show your hand. Yep.
Marc Isseks (35:48)
Do you, would you mind like sharing like a little snippet of something with the audience?
Colleen Kelley (35:53)
sure,
This is one of my favorite segments from File 3, the case of the pillaging pirates that is, like I said, it's a parody on the Princess Bride.
And so what you have ⁓ on this page is Big Ox is one of ⁓ Pirate Clive's henchmen, and Big Ox is oxygen, and he's rowing in the shore on this kind of red inner tube that is actually the element iron.
And so iron oxide is actually a compound. So iron does carry oxygen in the body in the form of hemoglobin. And then outside the body, iron oxide is rust. So there's so much chemistry just on big ox paddling in on the iron.
(03:19):
⁓ But it doesn't look like that. It just looks like he has a goofy inner tube. And then in black is the man in black. Of course you have to have the man in black. And the man in black is Sir Carbon. And carbon is black. ⁓ It's, you know, coal or, you know, graphene or graphite. And so he has the right coloring. And so Big Ox asks him... ⁓
So he says, forgive me, but I have to ask you, do you have six electrons? And he says, yes, I have six electrons. Why do you ask? And so carbon does have six electrons. And so he is the six electron man. So there's just a ton of chemistry happening on this page without one element symbol.
Nicholas Simone (37:09)
you
Marc Isseks (37:09)
Hahaha
Colleen Kelley (37:24)
And so Big Ox throws the inner tube at him and he says, somehow I feel like I'm supposed to say all my life I've been looking for the six electron man. My name is in oxygenomantoya. You killed my father prepared to die. And then he qualifies that, none of that is true. Clive just told us to stop you. So if you don't mind, we'll just get you over here.
Nicholas Simone (37:37)
Haha
Wow.
Colleen Kelley (37:48)
And then he talks Big Ox into joining him and Big Ox and Red and Rusty become double agents. ⁓ And the story goes on from there. But I think this is just a great example of how you can seamlessly put a ton of chemistry on a page without any kind of ⁓ in your face, like this is happening. And so there's a lot to be learned from that.
Nicholas Simone (38:16)
It most definitely is. That's brilliant.
Marc Isseks (38:19)
It's brilliant. And such a great takeoff
Colleen Kelley (38:19)
Thank you all so much.
Marc Isseks (38:21)
of one of my favorite movies of all time. I love that.
Colleen Kelley (38:22)
Me too.
Nicholas Simone (38:26)
That's great.
Marc Isseks (38:28)
You should send that to Christopher Guest. He played the Six Finger Man.
Nicholas Simone (38:30)
You should do...
Colleen Kelley (38:32)
he did? Okay, I was like...
Nicholas Simone (38:36)
Any plans for an audiobook? You do? Okay.
Colleen Kelley (38:40)
We have them. So we have free audio
books available. I partnered with What If World podcast for kids and he's brilliant. His name is Eric O'Keefe. He's the host of the show and he makes voiceovers. He's a stand up comedian improv kind of guy. And so kids will call into a show and say, you know, what if the world was run by bananas and he'll improv that on his show. So he's very funny. But what he did with my books is he'll take those characters that you just saw and voiceover for
each of them. And he also elevates the story. He's much younger, so he's funnier, adds a little bit more relevant humor. yeah, so those are available for free. And what I love about
(03:40):
The experience of if a child is reading the book and then I've got the audible on in the background that's voiceover characters, some of my more neurodivergent students and lower readers then are brought right up to the same level. So while you're listening and you're reading and you're looking at the pictures, everybody is having a very similar experience. So if you want to create that in your classroom and literally keep everyone on the same page, you can have the audible going while they're reading.
at the same time and they really love that. It's a little bit like the first time I read Harry Potter and then you go to the movie. So I usually have them read the book first and then hear Eric's rendition of the voices and they say, didn't expect Big Ox to sound like that. So it's that nice experience.
Marc Isseks (40:10)
Because graphic novels and comic books are so accessible to young readers, you mentioned lowering the barriers to entry and then that's exactly what graphic novels and comic books do. So you're hitting on all the right notes. Wonderful. Where could educators and parents find your comic books?
Colleen Kelley (40:30)
So for now, they're only available on my website. So kidschemicalsolutions.com. And there's links to purchase with descriptions of everything that's offered. They are being published by Hewitt Learning. So when you go to my website and click, it'll take you to Hewitt Learning as well. So hewittlearning.org has them. I think they're easier to find, though, on my website because Hewitt Learning has other products.
Nicholas Simone (40:55)
great product, we'll spread the word to as many people as we can. And every elementary superintendent in the country should be purchasing these because it really is precisely what we need to engage kids at a young age. And of course, teach them a little bit of science and reading and have fun along the way. It's the perfect product. Well done, congrats, congrats.
Colleen Kelley (41:17)
Thank you. Thank
you. Thank you.
Marc Isseks (41:20)
Thank you so much for sharing it with us and for taking the time to join us on the podcast today. We really, really appreciate it.
Colleen Kelley (41:26)
Yeah, thank you for having me on the show. It's been great.
Nicholas Simone (41:30)
Thank you very much. My AP chemistry teacher was a wonderful man, Mr. McManus, and the two of you would have gotten along very, very well. So now I have two great chemistry teachers, I know.
Colleen Kelley (41:40)
Yeah.
Marc Isseks (41:40)
If you'd like to check out previous episodes of State of Ed Podcast, you can find us on the web at stateofedpodcast.com. You could also check us out on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or anywhere else that you find podcasts. You can also follow me on Twitter @marcisseks Marc or marcisseks.com on YouTube at edu.pyro, E-D-U-P-Y-R-O, or check out my book, Captivate, Engaging and Empowering Students in a World of Digital Distractions, available on Amazon.
Again, Dr. Kelley, thank you so much and we will absolutely post all of your links and information so our audience can find you and find your comics and all the amazing work that you've been doing and hopefully we will help you spread all this incredible molecular literacy out into the world for our young learners all over.
Colleen Kelley (42:24)
Thank you.
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