The theme for CCEW in 2024 was “Electrochemistry—Get a Charge out of Chemistry”. The Silicon Valley section held a workshop at Martin Luther King Library in San Jose where over 90 kids and their families learned out to make a battery using cantaloupe, mangoes and zucchini (because potatoes and lemons are so last year!) to power a small clock. They also discovered that graphite drawings and playdough snakes can be used to close circuits and light an LED or sound a buzzer. We also electrolyzed water into H2 and O2 gas. These experiments were conducted by student volunteers from Santa Clara University. This is our second post-Covid event at Martin Luther King Library and we plan to continue this fruitful collaboration.
In a second event, Anais Nguyen and Natalie McClure traveled to Salinas to work with the afterschool program at El Sausal Middle School, held by the Salinas Community Workshop. At the Salinas workshop, we electroplated coins, nuts/bolts and other small objects. One student wasn’t pleased when we “turned the dime into a penny”. We haven’t tried out copper plated quarters in a vending machine yet. That will be our next experiment.
Submitted by Natalie McClure
