'Safety Matters' on Cape Cod

On Friday December 16, 2016, I'll be rolling out the education module 'Safety Matters' to the 7th grade at the Monomoy Regional Middle School in Chatham, Cape Cod. 

This general awareness training program developed jointly by the National Institute of Occupational Heath and Safety (NIOSH) and the American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) is designed to teach young workers how to identify workplace hazards and know their rights as workers.

Why is this important? Here are some statistics you may not know: 

• "Approximately 1.6 million U.S. teens (aged 15–17) work.
• Every nine minutes, a U.S. teen is injured on the job.
• On average, each year:
• 59,800 workers under the age of 18 are sent to the ER for job-related injuries
• 37 workers under the age of 18 die on the job.
• Young workers are twice as likely to be injured compared to adult workers." (from https://www.aiha.org/get-involved/SafetyMattersCenter/Pages/default.aspx)

As you may know, if you follow any of my social media, I'm an avid volunteer for the American Chemical Society (ACS) and serve in various public relations leadership roles. Notably, American Chemical Society CEO, Tom Connelly described an interest in partnering with other professional societies on chemical and lab safety issues in his June 27, 2016 comment titled ACS's Role in Safety in Chemical and Engineering News. This got me thinking about potential partnerships between the ACS and AIHA. It seemed logical to me to get the ACS involved in this particular education outreach effort because of its central workplace safety message; especially the American Chemical Society Division of Chemical Health & Safety (DCHAS). So I pitched the idea to the DCHAS Executive Committee at the recent Fall National Meeting of the American Chemical Society of having DCHAS 'endorse' my efforts to bring 'Safety Matters' to Cape Cod students, as well as my own local ACS section: Northeastern Local Section and NEAIHA, my AIHA Local section. The overall goal in partnering with so many groups is for me to report back with a 'best practices on how to implement 'Safety Matters' in a way that will inspire and guide members of the various groups/subgroups I have engaged, to encourage their members to bring this program to their own communities. Eventually, once I've completed this pilot program on the Cape & Islands, I'd like to tap into the ACS Local Section networks, there are 187 of them, who have outreach activities in place for National Chemical Week in the Fall and Chemists Celebrate Earth Day in the Spring and have their interested members use their community connections to bring 'Safety Matters' to those grade 7-12 educators. Ultimately, once the teachers are introduced to 'Safety Matters' by a volunteer, they can access more in-depth workplace safety programs for young workers that can be added to their curriculum. 

I am grateful to have the support of the ACS Office of Public Affairs, Tom Connelly, DCHAS and NESACS as well as the AIHA Board of Directors, AIHA CEO Larry Sloan and the NEAIHA Executive Committee as I launch 'Safety Matters' Cape-wide.

ACS Entrepreneurial Resource Center Showcase East Event Recap

Featured tonight at #SCIMIX on the SCHB track:

Come by and meet with me to hear about this successful ACS entrepreneurial event! Tonight, August 11, 2014 8pm-10pm Moscone North Hall D SCHB track.

ACS Entrepreneurial Resource Center Showcase East Event

By: Jennifer Maclachlan, PR Chair, ACS Division of Small Chemical Businesses

On Wednesday April 9, 2014, the ACS Division of Small Chemical Businesses (SCHB) together with ACS National, the Northeastern Local Section (NESACS), Chemical Innovation and Entrepreneurship Council (CIEC), ACS Division of Business Development and Management (BMGT), Nova Biomedical and PID Analyzers, LLC, presented the 2014 ACS Entrepreneurial Resource Center Showcase East Event, a chemistry-based business pitch competition, featuring a cash prize for the winning pitch. The daytime event took place at the Hilton Garden Inn and concluded with an evening program hosted by Nova Biomedical in Waltham, MA. Eighteen chemistry-based start-ups seeking investments and/or strategic partners gave their pitch on technologies involving materials, scientific instruments, therapeutic candidates, diagnostic devices, and cleantech products. 

The organizing committee included the following ACS National staff members: Michael David, David Harwell, Kenneth Polk and Garretta Rollins and the following member volunteers: Mukund Chorghade, SCHB Chair and Chair NESACS Professional Relations Committee, Jack Driscoll, NESACS Public Relations and SCHB Member and Jennifer Maclachlan, SCHB Public Relations Chair, Chair CIEC Public Relations and Communications and Member NESACS Public Relations Committee. We couldn’t have done it without the assistance of our reviewers, mentors, volunteers and judges. Reviewers: Gianna Arnold, Esq., Partner, Saul Ewing LLP, Dr. Dan Daly, Director, the Alabama Innovation and Mentoring of Entrepreneur Center, Dr. Judy Giordan, Managing Director, ecosVC, Dr. Michael Lefenfeld, President and CEO, SiGNa Chemistry, Jeffrey A. Lindeman, Esq., Founder, J.A. Lindeman & Co. PLLC and Ralph T. Scannell, Ph.D. Mentors: Tony Brazzale, Founder and CEO, Gordian Biotechnologies, Anthony Buzzelli, Retired Partner, Deloitte and Dr. Dan Daly, Director, Alabama Innovation and Mentoring of Entrepreneur Center. Volunteers:  The Manderson Graduate School of Business at the University of Alabama, Dr. Rob Morgan, Director, Steven Beard, Melissa Huynh,  Max Mittenthal,  Vincent Philippe, Michael Royko and Larry Wink. A special thank you goes to Mark Vreeke, Sid White and Judy Giordan of the Chemical Angel Network (CaN) for their support of this endeavor. Judges: Mukund Chorghade, Chris Incarvito, Director of Research Operations and Technology at Yale University, and Ken Polk.

Congratulations to Andrew Bond of DeNovX, who gave the winning pitch and was the recipient 0f the $10,000 cash prize!

Learn more about this event and what made it a success at the SCHB Entrepreneurs’ Poster Session Monday morning August 11, 2014 Moscone Center, South Bldg, Esplanade Ballroom 301 and on Monday night August 11, 2014 at the SCHB poster session at SCI MIX. 

Science Carnival 2014 at Cambridge Science Festival

2014 marks my third time participating in the Cambridge Science Festival public outreach event: The Science Carnival and Robot Zoo. It is exactly as awesome and cool sounding as it's title. This year I brought along Chemistry Ambassador superstar Dr. Al Hazari, who is widely recognized for his enthusiastic chemistry outreach. Dr. Hazari is a Helen M. Free Award recipient. The Helen M. Free award for Public Outreach recognizes outstanding achievements in the field of public outreach by a member of the American Chemical Society (ACS) who improves public recognition and appreciation for the contributions of chemistry.

Setting up the three ACS tables at 2014 #cambscifest Science Carnival

My daughters and I on our way to
work at the Science Carnival

We were placed indoors this year which I was secretly glad about since although it was a beautiful sunny Spring day in Cambridge, it can get breezy (cold!) on the tennis courts where we've been the last two years. We had three American Chemical Society tables in The Micro Zone. Dr. Hazari had his own table loaded with toys and various hands-on experiments. The experiments varied in complexity; for instance, my nine year old (pictured above left) and another volunteer's eleven year old (pictured above right) were able to conduct simple hands-on demonstrations for carnival go-ers.

Click here to download the
pdf handout

I setup my pH table. It's so simple, easy for people to understand and since the 2014 Chemists Celebrate Earth Day theme is Water, I brought some Cape Cod water samples and personally handed out 250 copies of the Chemists Celebrate Earth Day activity book to participants who came to my table and performed a pH experiment with litmus paper. I also brought vinegar, an energy drink, and ammonia containing window cleaner so those conducting the experiment could experience the range on the pH scale.

Note the train-the-trainer going on in the
background with Cosmo and Dr. Hazari (rainbow
lab coat)

Cosmo Sabatino, a member of the Northeastern Local Section of the American Chemical Society (NESACS) Public Relations Committee, worked the third table. After an exhilarating demo of Dr. Hazari's arsenal of outreach supplies, Cosmo chose the ones he wanted to use. I think his favorite was the Newton's Beads which defied gravity and stole the attention of passerbys. 

Cosmo was assisted by my daughter and then by Sonja Strah-Pleynet's daughter. Sonja and the young ladies worked all three tables and jumped in to help when we got inundated with a crowd which built steadily throughout the afternoon. The event was scheduled from 12pm-4pm but we had a throng of carnival attendees from 11:30am-4:40pm. We finally had to tell Dr. Hazari that it was, well, over. 

Dr. Hazari is famous for his rainbow lab coat AND his pink safety goggles

Cosmo reeling in the Newton's Beads for the next group

Getting in some one-on-one time before it got hectic

There was a steady crowd throughout the afternoon and before we knew it...

It was way past 4pm and we were still going...

It was time to put away the dolly and pack all this stuff up for Tennessee

Dr. Hazari and Jennifer Maclachlan Salute!
A wonderful ending to an amazing outreach weekend. Read about our teacher workshop the night before the science carnival. 

When Dr. Hazari returned to Tennessee, it was announced that he is the 2014 recipient of the Chancellor's Award. This Alumni Public Service Award honors a faculty or staff member whose work has made a significant impact on the Knoxville-area community.
Read about it here.

ACS ERC 2014 SHOWCASE EAST (April 9, 2014) STREAMED LIVE and the winner is...

American Chemical Society Entrepreneurial Showcase East #ACSERC 2014 SHOWCASE EAST (April 9, 2014) Eighteen chemistry based #startups competed for a $10,000 cash prize in Waltham, MA at #ACSERC Showcase East. View the taped presentations online.

ACS ERC Showcase East Event happening April 9, 2014 Register Now!

This Wednesday is the ACS Entrepreneurial Resource Center 2014 Showcase East event, featuring the chemistry, management teams, and value propositions of 19 exciting chemical start-ups that are looking for investments and/or strategic partners.  The companies offer a broad range of chemistries involving materials, scientific instruments, therapeutic candidates, diagnostic devices, and cleantech products.  I’ve attached a Program Agenda for your review and use.

___________

DAY Program (Wednesday, April 9, 2014 from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM (EDT):

If you’d like to participate live and view the presentations, please register at ACS ERC 2014 Showcase East Registration.  It’s free!  Here are the directions: Hilton Garden Inn Boston/Waltham, 450 Totten Pond Road, Waltham, MA 02451. Scroll down to see names and types of companies that are participating in the business competition or click here to view.

If you can’t make it, but would like to join us online, please use the following link:ACS ERC 2014 Showcase East Virtual Participation Link.

___________

 

EVENING Program (Wednesday, April 9, 2014 from 5:00 PM to 9:00 PM (EDT):

There is a reception and evening program at the headquarters of Nova Biomedical Corporation, 200 Prospect Street, Waltham MA, 02254-9141. It’s also free to attend!   If you’d like to attend, please register at ACS ERC 2014 Showcase East - Evening Program.

Thanks for considering this event, and we hope you can join us!

With very best regards,

Ken

Kenneth J. Polk, Esquire

Innovation Counsel | Administrator to the ACS Entrepreneurial Resources Center

American Chemical Society

1155 16th Street NW

Washington, D.C. 20036

The ACS Vision:  Improving people's lives through the transforming power of chemistry

  ACS ERC 2014 Showcase East Final Program Entrepreneurial Presenters uploaded by Jennifer Maclachlan

California Air Monitoring: From inception to current trends in the new millennium at #ACSSF

Hope you can join us for our California Air Monitoring Poster Session   

 Scheduled for Wednesday evening August 13, 2014 at 6pm

California Air Monitoring: From inception to current trends in the new millennium organized by Jennifer Maclachlan and Jack Driscoll

National Chemistry Week Comes to Cape Cod

Blog post updated: September 4, 2014 This one event was a finalist in two separate 2014 ChemLuminary Award categories in San Francisco August 12, 2014: Outstanding Collaboration Between a Local Section and a Division AND Outstanding National Chemistry Week Event for a Specific Audience

The event described below won the 2014 Chemluminary Award for Outstanding Collaboration Between a Local Section and a Division. Pictured are the members of the Northeastern Local Section of the American Chemical Society and the Environmental Chemistry Division with  members of ACS governance, receiving the award on stage at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, CA on Tuesday August 12, 2014.

Photo by Peter Cutts Photography

Update: September 12, 2014-NESACS offered to let us borrow the award. Jack was delighted to bring it to PID Analyzers today!

We'll bring it with us to our meeting at the Cape and Islands Boy Scouts of American Council office next week for our organizing committee meeting for the continuing program: Wicked Cool Science Cafe 2014. Organizing Committee with the Award Photos to follow. 

Update: September 18, 2014
Jack Driscoll presented the ChemLuminary award that NESACS and ENVR won in San Francisco for the joint ACS/Boy Scout event, to some of the members of the 2013 Wicked Cool Event Organizing Committee, who represent the Cape and Islands Council of the Boy Scouts of America.

By: Jack Driscoll, NESACS Public Relations Chair and ENVR Division Member and Jennifer Maclachlan, NESACS Public Relations Committee Member and ENVR Appropriations Committee Member

Cambridge Science Festival brought a variety of energy-
related experiments to *Wicked Cool*
including making batteries using apples

NESACS and ENVR Bring National Chemistry Week to Cape Cod to Join with the Boy Scouts Wicked Cool Autumn Festival on Oct. 26, 2013

The Northeastern Section of the American
Chemical Society (NESACS) is one of the largest of the 187 sections of the American Chemical Society (ACS) with 7,500 members from academia and industry. We have had 11 Nobel Laureates in our section. The majority of the members (about 80%)are located in Boston. Cape Cod is in the South Eastern part of the section and during the International Year of Chemistry (2011), NESACS worked with PID Analyzers, a Cape Cod analytical and environmental instrumentation company, to run four science cafes for our members and the public. These very successful topics included protecting Cape Cod water, Alternate Energy, Chemistry of Beer (hosted by Cape Cod Beer) and Healthy Kids (for K-6 at Sandwich Public Library). The audiences ranged from 40 at the first Science Café to 150 at Healthy kids (K-6) Cafe. Learn more about the Cape Cod Science Cafe here.

Each year since 1987, the ACS runs National Chemistry Week (NCW) with a theme and each of the 187 sections participate. The theme of this year’s NCW is energy (Oct. 20-26, 2013). NESACS has programs for K-12 students at the Boston Museum of Science and the Boston Children’s Museum. We reach more than 3,000 children during that week with our events.  

We had "Wicked Cool Science Cafe" labelled Glow Sticks at our Chemistry Ambassador table
which is where kids picked up their Passports to Chemistry and got their
glow stick and patch when they completed the various activities

Nancy Gifford, Middle School Science Teacher in Harwich and
Jennifer Maclachlan, NESACS/ENVR are both members of
the Organizing Committee for the Wicked Cool Science Cafe.

Wicked cool patch. We're from Massachusetts-
We're allowed to say *wicked*

How we got involved with the Boy Scouts:
Our friend, Dennis Walczewski, whom we recruited to work at the NESACS/SCHB table at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Family Science Days event earlier in the year thought we could do something similar with the Cape and Islands Council of the Boy Scouts where Dennis serves on their board.
A STEM committee was formed to include Boy Scout board members, interested stakeholders and Jack Driscoll and Jennifer Maclachlan. Planning meetings began this summer and it was agreed that we would bring STEM programming into an existing event with a bigger, stand-alone event slated for next year (March 2014). We decided to incorporate a Science Café into the Boy Scouts Wicked Cool Autumn Welcome in October which is held at their campgrounds in South Yarmouth: Camp Greenough. Since this event is during NCW, and our Science Cafes have been quite popular, this was a natural fit with the Boy Scouts Annual Event. We merged the Wicked Cool Autumn Welcome with the Science Cafe and it became the Wicked Cool Science Cafe. The patch seen left was given as a "participant" patch to all the kids who attended the event. Our Local Section partnered with the American Chemical Society Division of Environmental Chemistry for this event.

Craig Christensen, Director of the Electrical Engineering Department at Suffolk University, was very popular with his alternative energy items including a Mendocino motor, Wimshurst machine, hand crank generator, wind mill, sparkers, and a mini-hand-crank train set race. 

Below is the event flyer that was used to promote the event to both the Boy Scout families as well as throughout the Cape Cod school district via backpack or virtual backpack. In order to do this, permission must be granted via the Superintendent of Schools for each District.

Peg from Cambridge Science Festival got to work outside by the lake administering the rocket launching.

The participants in this event included: ACS, NESACS, ENVR, Cambridge Science Festival-Science on the Street, Suffolk University Physics and Engineering Dept., Liquid Robotics, Green Briar Nature Center, Zephyr Education Foundation marine research and others. There were hands on experiments for K-6 students. 

Our chemistry ambassadors above are some of the local area scientists who talked to the kids about their careers. They are from Liquid Robotics, PID Analyzers, LLC , Zephyr Education Foundation and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI). We had envisioned this event being a K-12 event, but it ended up being K-6 which made the planned career talks turn out differently than planned but neat in it's own way-We paired the scientists at the outreach tables and they interacted with the kids and told them cool things about their jobs.

A follow-up  Boy Scout’s STEM  event on March 29, 2014 in conjunction with the American Chemical Society National Event: Chemists Celebrate Earth Day (CCED) occurred. Due to the success of both of these programs in 2013 and 2014, we will continue to offer an October and March program in 2014/2015. Save the date for National Chemistry Week comes to Cape Cod on Saturday October 25, 2014 and STEM Journey on March 28, 2015.

Science on the Street on the Cape or how my six year old and I bonded

I spent Saturday afternoon at the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History participating in the Cambridge Science Festival, Science on the Street STEM outreach event. This was an event I had planned to attend with my family but instead we ended up as exhibitors, representing the American Chemical Society. My eight year old daughter enjoys the VIP experience of working at a science festivals for several reasons: getting there before the public is allowed to enter, as the kid of a volunteer she gets to check out and try all the cool activities before everyone else since the other exhibitors are eager to practice on a real kid before the rush and the best is of course having a place to come and rest between doing fun activities. 

Since both of my girls had planned to assist me at the ACS table, I told each of their teachers about it. The second grade teacher suggested I make a flyer that she would send home with the students in the class plugging the event with a call-out box stating that their classmate would be at the Chemistry Table and we hoped to see them there. As a result of the flyer, my six year old had one classmate attend and my eight year old had two classmates attend. My friend's mother who is a Naturalist and had business at the Museum in the morning stuck around to see us setup since her daughter saw on Facebook that we'd be there. She also noted with a wink that she already knew because she saw it on Twitter. Other friends of ours stopped by because they saw my Facebook posts about it. There was something really special to me and to my girls about seeing so many friends at this event in our community. Oftentimes when we are assisting at Local Section outreach events they are in Boston or Cambridge and have a sort of anonymity to them. 

A retired chemist ACS member appeared at my table. He was delighted to see ACS at the event and wondered if we were down the Cape or had come from Boston? I gave him all my contact information and told him about our NESACS Cape Cod Science Cafe events. I would have liked to have spoken to him longer but I had a table full of pint-sized chemists demanding my attention. 

First they were asked if they wanted to do some chemistry and then if they answered yes were instructed to wear goggles to protect their eyes since we were working with liquids. Then if they didn't know how to use an eyedropper (many didn't since most kids were between ages 3-7) they got to practice with it before squeezing drops onto the pH paper, matching the color change portion of the strip with the pH color number chart and then using a meter to compare the results. I was able to have five kids at a time conduct their experiments at my table with the help of my six year old who cleaned up between experiments, assisted children who needed it (even kids older than herself) and kept restocking the Kids Discover Chemistry Magazines. 

Of course I was met during the one brief lull with a concerned citizen who was inquiring as to whether or not it was *safe* to expose children to toxic chemicals. She gestured towards my red flask which was full of salt water from Barnstable Harbor. And then to the purple flask full of cabbage juice then to the green one with vinegar, well you get the picture. She wandered away from the table looking relieved. 

Before my six year old went to sleep that night she told me that today's festival was the best one we have ever done. It was her favorite. I told her it was my favorite too. Some serious mother-daughter bonding took place while working the chemistry table together. I'm glad we decided to volunteer instead of just attend. Sometimes it really pays to be a VIP.