Chemistry Day May 2014 a Success!

in Outreach
May 8th, 2014

 

The Boston University (BU) Chemistry Department and BU Women in Chemistry (BUWIC) have sponsored the sixth annual Chemistry Day on Friday, May 2, 2014. Through this collaboration, we hosted over 170 high school students, from Brighton (Brighton), O’Bryant (Roxbury), and Boston Latin (Dorchester) high schools, making this our most attended Chemistry Day. The event began when we welcomed our high school students with a one-hour demonstration show led by BUWIC’s Outreach Coordinator, Stacy Chin (BU Chemistry, 2nd year). These demonstrations focused on chemistry concepts regarding pH changes of a solution, the ideal gas law, making “Elephant’s Toothpaste,” and the “Methane Mamba.” Afterwards, the students broke off into 12 smaller groups, led by our BU undergraduate volunteers, to tour different chemistry labs and the BU Chemical Instrument Center (CIC). The students also got to work together in our undergraduate teaching laboratory to perform an oxidation and reduction metal experiment (a variation on a CH101 undergraduate lab experiment) and also use glow sticks to investigate different antioxidants in common vitamins and foods. These experiments were led by graduate students Stacy Chin, Kathryn Summo (BUWIC President), Jessica Biagi (BUWIC Vice President), Diane Hamann (BUWIC Seminar Coordinator), Stephanie Maiocco (BUWIC Social Coordinator), Cheryl Chiang (BUWIC Treasurer), and Gina Kim (BUWIC Webmaster and Secretary). Before returning to their high schools at the end of this half-day event, the students enjoyed a BBQ lunch sponsored by the Chemistry Department.

BU Chemistry Day is the conclusion of an outreach program coordinated by Stacy during the 2014 spring academic semester. Throughout the course of the program, 8 BU undergraduates visited multilingual chemistry classrooms at Brighton, O’Bryant, and Boston Latin High Schools, every other week to mentor students, assist teachers with instruction, and perform demonstrations.

BU Chemistry is grateful to all of those involved, with special thanks to:

  • BUWIC- Kathryn Summo (President), Jessica Biagi (Vice President), Stacy Chin (Outreach Coordinator), Diane Hamann (Seminar Coordinator), Stephanie Maiocco (Social Coordinator), Cheryl Chiang (Treasurer), and Gina Kim (Webmaster & Secretary).
  • Teaching lab coordinators: Boris Bezverkhny
 and Alex Golger
  • Graduate Student and Post-doctoral Teaching Fellow Volunteers: Matt Golder, Evan Darzi, Evan Judd, Steven Hannigan, and Daniele Ramella
  • Undergraduate “Outreachers”: Kyle Bannon (O’Bryant), Kelly Demeo (O’Bryant), Pyria Jani (Brighton), Doreen Sayadfar (Brighton), Abby Eichelman (Brighton), Min Yang (Brighton), May Young (Boston Latin), Tessa Lynch-Colameta (Boston Latin), Esther Yan (Boston Latin).

Undergraduate Volunteers: Francis Graff, Eric Loreaux, Leslie Fung, Ana Fernandez-Ravelo, Thuy Le, Daniel Wiley, Undina Osk, Koryn Palaski, Lynne Cherchia, Vasilis Paraschos, Stephen Figueroa, Anna Southworth, Niklaos Matsaniotis, Bryant Yu, Christie Yeo, Serah Yim, Jennifer Kwong

Here are some pictures from our awesome 2014 Chemistry Day!