A chemistry comic
Dr Rob McElroy from the University of York collaborated with artists at Teesside University – three masters students led by Senior Lecturer Julian Lawrence – to create a comic to teach children about sustainability and solvents.
By Dr Rob McElroy
The project involved the production of a comic book aimed at Key Stage 2 and 3 school children based on research coming out of the University of York. The specific research in question was the discovery and production of the biobased solvent Cyrene of which Rob is one of the inventors.
The first draft was trialled with 28 KS2 students in Acomb Primary by Tom Dennis and 200 KS3 students in All Saints RC school lead by head of Chemistry Alice Hurd, making use of learning resources that were included in a teacher pack to accompany the comic. The final version of the comic is almost ready for printing and will be distributed to all 47 primary schools in York and 3 secondary schools.
I have a love of comics and visual arts and have wanted to use them to help get across the exciting world of Green Chemistry for a long time but don't have the artistic talent. I met Julian at a virtual event hosted by UKRI on UK participation in Horizon Europe where he wanted to use his art to help inform the public about scientific research. We had a number of zoom calls and realised we could work together to produce something that would meet both of our desires in this area.
The RSC Outreach Fund let us turn our idea into reality. We engaged the help of two experienced teachers and put a plan together to submit to the RSC. As we progressed, I became more excited with each meeting and very much enjoyed discussing Green Chemistry, sustainability and solvents with the artistic team, discussing the work from a different angle and with different people than I would in my normal working activities. From this the idea of the "Green Kid" as a super hero that would be a vehicle to allow us to inform people about green chemistry was born. Holding that first printed copy was a joyous occasion, as was hearing back from the two schools after running the trial lessons. None of this would have happened without the support of the RSC.
This was a team effort, Julian and I worked on the initial concept, but it was him and his team of artists James Patricks, Jade Doran and Kirsty Stebbings that turned and enriched the idea into a beautiful reality. Jason Camp of Circa supplied some images of their FC5 plant to use in the backdrop of some of the panes. Tom Dennis and Alice Hurd let us track how effective the comics were as a learning aid, what aspects worked and what needed refining.
We're looking for funding for issues 2 and 3 where we'd like to share more of the exciting research going on in York and our partners in the field of Green Chemistry. The next two topics I'd most like to cover would be phytoremediation, phytomining and phytocatalysis for issue 2, and lithium ion batteries and battery recycling for issue 3.
Find out more about Green Chemistry at York
Apply to our Outreach Fund
Our Outreach Fund is open for applications throughout 2022 for grants of up to £10,000!
Through the Fund we enable members, individuals and organisation to run chemistry-based engagement activities for families, members of the public and youth audiences in and out of schools. We are especially interested in supporting projects which aim to engage under-represented audiences in their activities as well as projects themed around sustainability.
Look at recent examples of funded projects, and apply to the fund now.
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