As a high school chemistry teacher, Adrian Dingle has hands-on experience getting young people interested in science in general and chemistry in particular, helping kids see that science is involved in both the wondrous and the everyday. In How to Make a Universe with 92 Ingredients: An Electrifying Guide to the Elements, from Owlkids, he tackles questions such as what gives comets their tails and how matches ignite. Writing with his readers’ ages in mind, Dingle not only wants them to learn about their world, but also wants them then to continue to learn and actually experiment (with supervision, of course), encouraging readers with suggestions for hands-on activities.  

Dingle has been teaching since 1990. The first ten years of his career were spent in and around London, teaching chemistry in a number of different institutions. He taught both public and private schools, in the Tutorial College sector, as well as developing an extensive one-on-one tutoring resume. In 2000 he moved to the United States with his American wife, and he has been teaching at The Westminster Schools in Atlanta, Ga. since then. 2006 brought the publication of his first book, The Periodic Table, Elements With Style!, and since then he has written a number of different titles and been a regular contributor to many other online and hard-copy chemistry projects. His work includes projects for Barnes & Noble SparkNotes, Shmoop, The Discovery Channel and many others. Dingle has won several awards, including the U.K.’s School Library Association’s Information Book Award in 2011 and Austria’s Wissenschaftsbuch des Jahre children’s award in 2012. This year he was selected as the Société de Chimie Industrielle Fellow at the Chemical Heritage Foundation in Philadelphia for 2014-2015. His website is www.adriandingleschemistrypages.com.

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