IYC KICKOFF EVENT: CAPE COD

Come Celebrate the International Year of Chemistry 2011
At the Cape Cod Science Cafe hosted by local ACS Members: 

Jennifer Maclachlan and Dr. Jack Driscoll
Sponsors include: American Chemical Society Northeastern Section, The Town of Barnstable, The Cape Cod Commission, Barnstable County Department of Health and Environment and PID Analyzers, LLC

Cape Cod Science Cafe: Protecting the Cape Cod Water Supply
At The Hyannis Golf Club, Route 132, Hyannis, MA 02601

RESCHEDULED DUE TO WEATHER TO:
Tuesday March 1, 2011
6:30pm-9pm

Soft drinks and light appetizers will be provided. Cash bar.

Introduction and overview of International Year of Chemistry presented by Jennifer Maclachlan on behalf of Dr. Morton Hoffman

Event Speakers:

  Krista Longnecker, Ph.D. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute will present: "A scientific perspective of water on Cape Cod"

Additional speakers include: 

 Gongmin Lei, M.S. Laboratory Director,  Barnstable County Department of Health and Environment will present "Inside Barnstable County Water Labs: An Overview of their State-of-the-Art laboratory equipment-what is is and what it does"

Susan Rask, M.S., R.S., Barnstable County Dept. of Health and Environment will present on the subject of Nitrogen and the Cape Cod coastal water quality

This event is open to the public and the purpose is to have the speakers, who are chemists or use chemistry in their jobs to educate the audience about this critical issue: 
protecting the water supply here on Cape Cod.

Calling all Cape Cod Twitter users; come meet with us and tweet with us from the Cape Cod Science Cafe. Follow the conversation: @pidgirl and the hashtag: #ccscicafe

RSVP to this event

The Role of Analytical Chemists in an Age of High-End Instrumentation & Robotization

Join me, Jennifer Maclachlan and Dr. Jack Driscoll,  at PITTCON in Atlanta, GA at our Conferee Networking Session on Tuesday March 15, 2011 from 4:30pm-6:30pm Room 218 Georgia World Congress Center to discuss my topic: The Role of Analytical Chemists in an Age of High-End Instrumentation and Robotization. 

Facilitators: Jennifer Maclachlan and Jack Driscoll

Description:
This networking session will be discussing how to maintain jobs for chromatographers by encouraging labs/researchers/industry/government to utilize lower end instrumentation that achieve better results.
 

What is a PITTCON Conferee Networking Session? "A Conferee Networking Session at PITTCON is free to all registered attendees and provides an open forum for people to establish new friendships, alliances and communication in an informal environment. These sessions provide an arena for conferees, exhibitors, sales and technical people to come together to discuss topics of mutual interest or solve problems specific to certain instrumentation and anything else of interest.

You can meet other people with similar interests, share your experiences with new technology, or brainstorm new ideas. Various year long networking groups have sprung up as a result of these sessions". Source of Quoted Text

National Chemistry Week on Cape Cod

Cape Cod Celebration October 21, 2011

ACS Member Volunteers: Dr. Jack Driscoll and Jennifer Maclachlan (wearing her Chemistry Ambassador pin)

At my first local section meeting, I had the pleasure of meeting the American Chemical Society (ACS) local section National Chemistry Week Chair, Christine Jaworek-Lopes, who gave me an incredible amount of support and a bagful of National Chemistry Week supplies to share with my "junior-chemists-in-training". Then, my "Jiggle Gels" kit arrived from The American Chemical Society, courtesy of The Chemistry Ambassadors, two days before Jack and I were scheduled to appear before the local after school program kids to celebrate National Chemistry Week. We had an abundance of chemistry related goodies with which to share and excite the children about chemistry. 

I arrived early and set up the tables with all our supplies including safety goggles-which were of course a huge hit amongst all of the kids grades K-8 since they were "like real scientists".

We had about 40 kids in all and they came in two rounds; each arriving looking tired and hungry after a long day of school. The older children, surprised by the room setup and the chemistry props and tools, raced to the tables thrilled by the idea of "doing a science experiment", forgoing their snacks until we had made every last bit of bright green slime.

As the little ones came in, the older students eagerly helped their young peers who arrived in the second group. First guiding them through the "lipstick experiment" and then telling them "how cool it was to make slime and how they could keep it" and showing them how to use the dropper and how much to measure of each "chemical". We had the children work both in partners and on their own-like real chemists; as a team and independently-the kids loved being like real chemists.


We even had the local newspaper in covering the event. The reporter was impressed by the level of enthusiasm that the children were exhibiting.

We promised the kids we'd come back soon to celebrate the International Year of Chemistry and also promised the program directors that we'd come in once a quarter during International Year of Chemistry.

At parent pick-up, one of the eighth graders ran up to his mother and asked her to high-five him and he "slimed" her-good thing the mother was amused with a "eeoow, gross" response. He said "Mom, you don't even understand HOW COOL this was; we did chemistry and made the slime  FROM SCRATCH, using chemistry".  

This made my heart happy.