Guest blog post by @pidguy: Cape Cod Science Cafe Healthy Kids was a real success

Guest blog post by @pidguy a.k.a. Dr. Jack Driscoll, PR Chair, NESACS

The Cape Cod Science Café was a real success. It was held at the Sandwich Public Library from 1-3PM on Sunday 12/11/11. We had flyers printed up and distributed  through the Sandwich & Barnstable Schools and articles in the Sandwich Enterprise (http://bit.ly/uSoQ68 )and the Cape Cod Times (http://bit.ly/uTk5HX) . The response was tremendous. There were about 150 people who attended . The Library phone was very busy Sunday morning. Everyone was excited as students and parents waited in lines 3-4 deep to watch the experiments. The event was focused on Sandwich and Barnstable, yet we had children from Weymouth and Hingham in attendance. A grade school principal from Plymouth who thought  that her students might be interested in this event visited us also. At least three parents said that their daughters insisted that their parents take them because they were interested in science. The children were very excited and I found that even a 3.5 year old girl was able to determine the pH of solutions by matching the colors on the pH paper.  

Polymer beads that change color when sun screen is needed. (Joan Driscoll)

Water cleanup & starch indicators (George Ruger from the Mid Hudson NY section

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Making hand sanitizer but ran out after about 85 samples given out (Jennifer Maclachlan, NESACS, Public Relations Committee Member)

pH testing of water samples, juices using pH paper  Students like the hands-on testing  approach (Jack Driscoll, Chair Public Relations, NESACS)

Using chemicals to teach students about blood types. (Paul  Reibach, NESACS member)

A summary of this new experiment on blood typing drew a great deal of interest from the students (http://bit.ly/tKadQJ  )

The article in the Cape Cod Times drew a 55 year  member of the ACS from Sandwich to our meeting.  Up to now has he not been connected to our local section. He saw the article in the Enterprise Newspapers! We are delighted to welcome him to NESACS and he plans to volunteer at our next K-12 outreach event NCW & CCED Page - Northeastern Section of the American Chemical Soci

Photos above courtesy of Randy Weintraub 

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We had many chemistry Ambassador helpers at our event.

Go chemistry ambassadors!

Healthy food and of course an International year of chemistry Cake (the food and cake were prepared by Marshland) was available

Photos above courtesy of Jennifer Maclachlan)

This event was organized by Jennifer Maclachlan and Jack Driscoll

The event was sponsored by the Sandwich Public Library with grants from the Northeastern Section of the American Chemical Society (NESACS) & PID Analyzers, LLC 

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