Outreach

Featured Video

“This is a Girl Scouts Silver Award project, aiming to help make the world a better place by looking at the problems observed in our everyday life. Helium is more important than people often think, and this video hopes to show you why exactly that is, and provide evidence-based facts, whether you already knew some of them or not. In case there is any question as to the sources, every statement in the following five and a half minutes has been reviewed for accuracy at least two to three times and comes from between one and five different credible sources and websites.”
View flyer

Silicon Valley Local Section Won a 2021 ChemLuminary Award for the Most Creative & Innovative Use of the CCEW Theme in Pop-Up Chemistry (See poster submitted to ChemLuminary and a recent promotional flyer.)

A positive and valuable lesson that COVID-19 has taught us is that we, humans, can be so creative and adapt to make the most out of everything. With the help of the remote tools available to us, Silicon Valley ACS was able to have one the most successful outreach programs this year, in collaboration with the Redwood City (RWC) library. See: Pop-Up Chemistry Flyer

This event was led by Natalie McClure and Jigisha Shah, two of the most dedicated SVACS volunteers, with great cooperation from Pam Evans, RWC librarian, and other SVACS scientist volunteers Dahyun Oh, Kristin Schmidt, Avni Gandhi, Dipti Shingnapukar, and Sogol Teschler.

In 2020, every Wednesday during the month of October we prepared and handed out bags containing all the required materials and instructions for experiments targeted for middle school students. These experiments were selected from ACS ‘Celebrating Chemistry’ booklets:

  • Oct 7/8, 2020:  Protecting Our Planet Through Chemistry (Sustainability)  (CCEW 2020 theme) (about this RWC Library event)
    Experiments:  a) Recycling water and b) earth friendly plastics—making “water pods” from calcium lactate and alginate powder. 
  • Oct 14/15, 2020:   Sticking with Chemistry (Adhesives) (NCW 2020 theme)  (about this RWC Library event)
    Experiments:  a) how many times can you stick a Post-it note and b) making glue and testing its strength against commercial glue products. 
  • Oct 24, 2020 (family day): Solving Mysteries through Chemistry 
    Experiments:  a) hidden messages (goldenrod paper) and b) identifying the unknown powder. 

Then on Thursdays, we all got together with the students and families through a Zoom virtual meeting to watch a recorded instruction video of the activities and to answer live questions. An average, 21 students attended each of the four virtual live events and enthusiastically participated in the activities. The grand finale was on Saturday October 24, 2020, when normally we would have had our Bay Area Science Festival at Oracle Park.  Instead, this year, we hosted a live Zoom event with 56 students and their families solving a mystery through chemistry.

We were thrilled to hear all the positive comments that came back from the students that participated. Our all-time favorite one was when one child called out “I feel like a chemist”.  That comment by itself paid off all our outreach volunteer efforts and made us feel accomplished.  Other feedback included quips “Whoa, cool! The color changed”, “Is that a chemical change or a physical change?”, “Oh wait, I’m not done. I made a mistake in my logic”, and “This is so fun!” on showing us a secret message come into view.

Stay tuned for our future program of this interactive nature as we are planning to continue our virtual outreach events.

Pop-Up Chemistry
  • May 19/22, 2021 Citizen Scientist – Water Quality (about this RWC Library event) Created with the California ACS Section, view and download the Water Quality Kit plus the video below. Join us for a Citizen Scientist program collecting data on water quality in your water shed.
  • June 16/19 The Chemistry of Tie-Dye (about this RWC Library event). The video below demonstrates the chemistry behind why some dyes used for tie-dying fabric can be made to bind quite strongly to cotton fabric, but hardly at all to polyester. Step-by-step instructions for doing this experiment yourself are included with the video. Please do try this at home!