Guest blog post by George Ruger, Chair, Mid-Hudson Section of the American Chemical Society
Halloween is
great for ghosts and goblins. Also for
superheroes and villians. And of course the highlight of any good
holiday- food. In this case, lots and
lots of candy!! Sugar and chocolate and
things that are gummi. A dentist's
equivalent of a winning scratch ticket perhaps?
But this is the
International Year of Chemistry! So to
make things even more complicated for children and parents alike, we are adding
a little bit of Chemistry into one of our favorite holidays. The Mid Hudson section of the American
Chemical Society helped bring in winter and our favorite candy holiday with
Halloween at Dutchess Stadium, home of the Hudson Valley Renegades baseball
team. The weekend winter snowstorm was
an added bonus. Great for the marketing
department, not so great for the rest of us.
The gates to
Dutchess stadium opened from 4 to 7pm.
During that time a few hundred children and parents walked through the
lower level of the stadium. There were
corporate sponsors representatives who had tables decorated and were giving out
candy to the kids and some adults who had bags as well. It seems that most adults with bags were
almost required to say that the candy was for another kid who could not
attend. Hey, we are not there to
judge! It's ok to like holidays. About ten corporate sponsors from the regular
season showed up, secondarily showing off their products to the crowd. But lets face it, the kids primarily wanted
candy and entertainment. So handfulls of
candy were handed out and the staff of Dutchess Stadium had activities for the
kids. There were Halloween stickers to
put on hats and decorate costumes with.
And lots of costumes as far as the eye could see.
So how does
Chemistry fit into all of this? Well, at
the Mid Hudson ACS table, along with bags of candy were some funny looking
instruments, including a pH meter. There
was literature to hand out describing IYC and the Global Water Experiment as
well as the Chemistry Ambassadors program and a copy of the Periodic
Table. But what really got people's
attention were the bottles of water and soda next to the pH meter. Ok, only a few dozen people seemed truly
interested, but that is not too bad considering how many other things there
were to do.
So we all know
about the Global Water Experiment. Many
scientists worldwide are taking pH measurements of water samples from various
sources and inputting that information into a global database. So how is this relevant to Halloween? Well, at the ACS booth we were taking pH
results from two sources, a gallon jug of water and a bottle of soda. It seems that testing Stadium water was not
possible. The water supply was already
shut off for the winter. So the water
sample had a pH result of around 6.5, which is a decent result for drinking
water. Off to the soda- with a pH result
of around 3! Yup, soda has the same pH
value as vinegar (also around 3). Well,
with several acidic ingredients listed right on the label this should not be
too surprising. And yet for many it
still is! More than one type of soda was
tested, with similar results.
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| George Ruger, Chair Mid-Hudson ACS |
So what should
we take away from this? Halloween is
meant to be fun. But a little Chemistry
mixed in can still be fun. So, what can
we do with a chocolate bar? Does anyone
have access to a crucible?
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