Submitted by Angela Jovanovic-Bischof / Penn State on Wed, 11/13/2013 - 15:39
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Teaching

Hi All,

Our Graduate Women in Science Chapter is starting to brainstorm for our spring Girl Scout Workshop.  I was wondering if anyone has any good chemistry related activities that they have used for this sort of thing.  Any ideas would be welcome and greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Angela Jovanovic-Bischof

 

Kyle Grice / DePaul University

Hi Angela,

Is this an outreach program with girl scouts? What age groups? How much time will the workshop be?

You could always talk about the chemistry of girlscout cookies ;)

Elephant toothpast is always fun for the younger crowd, and for older students, when I was the university of washington, we did an outreach project that involved highschoolers where they made biodiesel in their classrooms. They all seemed to enjoy it. 

Abby O'Connor (Viper member, Assistant Professor at TCNJ) organized it when she was a postdoc there, you can contact her form more ideas. 

Kyle

Wed, 11/13/2013 - 16:06 Permalink
Angela Jovanovic-Bischof / Penn State

Hi Kyle,

Thanks for such a quick reply!

This is an outreach activity that is done twice a year here with girls aged 11-16 and we have about 4-5 hours on a Saturday to do the badge.  One of my fellow grad students is the chair for this program and she recruited me to help with some of this spring's activities.

We are trying to look for activities that are relevant and interesting for the girls, but also related to science.  And at that age, getting their attention can be quite difficult!

 

Thanks for the input again!

Angela

Wed, 11/13/2013 - 16:28 Permalink
Kyle Grice / DePaul University

Angela,

What about using red cabbage juice as a pH indicator? Colors are always cool. 

Kyle

Thu, 11/14/2013 - 10:43 Permalink