Science festival season
175 minutes for chemistry
The last few months have seen a wealth of science outreach activities across the country for science festival season.
John McCullagh, Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and senior lecturer at Stranmillis University College Belfast, spent his 175 minutes for chemistry coordinating the ‘Playful Chemistry’ event for the Northern Ireland Science Festival.
As academic collaborators for the Primary Science Teaching Trust at Stranmillis University College, John and colleague Andrea Doherty organised a hands-on chemistry workshop, which featured a demonstration from Nick Barker – outreach officer at the University of Warwick.
Two hundred primary school pupils and their teachers attended the event, and the undergraduate teacher-training students of Stranmillis University College supported the workshop.
“Nick had the pupils transfixed as he treated them to a wonderland of colour changes, eruptions, and even explosions, alongside an engaging and fascinating learning narrative", says John. “After a well-earned and healthy break, the pupils used household materials to create bubbles in a range of contexts, including density towers and effervescent mixtures; they even made their own lemonade! All of the workshop activities could be performed (safely!) at home – that was our guiding principle.
“The opportunity to be involved in the festival proved invaluable to our student teachers, as they experienced first-hand the organisation and management, as well as the educational value, of out-of-school visits. We are very grateful to Nick for his professionalism and fun, and hope to extend this approach to chemistry in our on-going work on behalf of the Primary Science Teaching Trust.”
The principal of Harmony Hill Primary School in Lisburn said of the event: “The consensus here among the Harmony Hill staff and children was that the event was excellent. The kids were fully enthralled by Nick’s demonstrations and they got the opportunity to work in the labs, which we obviously can’t offer them here. It was all very well organised and as staff, we were made to feel very welcome. We really enjoyed it and hope you do it again in the future!”
Royal Society of Chemistry staff and education coordinators also got involved in a number of science festivals.
Every year, we take part in Cambridge Science Festival, joining the University of Cambridge in their chemistry department on ‘Science Saturday’. This year was the biggest Cambridge Science Festival to date, with more than 340 events over the two weeks.
To continue our 175th anniversary celebrations, our activities took participants on a journey through the last 175 years of chemical discovery, from the work on colloids of our first president, Thomas Graham, to the future of chemistry and its applications.
Around 30 RSC staff members volunteered their time to help run the activities on the day. The polymers stand, where participants investigated the best chemical recipe to make bouncy balls, was a particular hit, with Max, aged nine remarking: “I’ve learnt lots of things today but I’ve definitely enjoyed this the most! It’s really fun, it doesn’t cost any money and it’s cool that you can do it at home”.
We also took part in this year’s Big Bang Fair – the largest celebration of science, technology, engineering and maths for young people in the UK – at the NEC in Birmingham. Over 75,000 students, teachers and parents visited the fair over its four-day programme.
Visitors to our stand took part in our 2016 Global Experiment Mission: Starlight, used Spectroscopy in a Suitcase to investigate Formula 1® engine oils, and raced to build a carbon allotrope with molecular models in the shortest time. Our 25 STEM Ambassador volunteers were there to help on the day, giving visitors the chance to talk to working chemists from a variety of career pathways.
175 minutes for chemistry
As the oldest chemical society in the world, we celebrated our 175th anniversary in 2016. We wanted to mark this milestone by recognising the important contributions our community makes to the chemical sciences. We asked our members and supporters to dedicate 175 minutes to chemistry in 2016 and share their stories with us. We featured these stories throughout the year on our website, in print in RSC News, and on social media using #time4chem.
Tell us your story
If you've been involved in an event or activity, or just have an interesting story to tell, we want to hear from you! Please get in touch using the online form or tweet us @RoySocChem using #time4chem.