Science for All capped off a successful year with two visits to campus from Marcy Open School (May 24) and Venture Academy (May 25). Students spent a science-filled day working on four experiments with the help of our team of mentors. The morning saw students making their own glow sticks and studying the chemistry that makes them work and making windmills to generate energy.
In the glow stick experiment, students first watched mentors create 2,4,6-trichlorophenyl oxalate from 2,4,6-trichlorophenol and oxalyl chloride. This reaction involves hazardous reactants and extreme heat generation, so mentors performed it in fume hoods. Then, they made their own glow sticks by mixing 10 mL ethyl acetate, 0.2 g sodium acetate, 0.2 g 2,4,6-trichlorophenyl oxalate, 0.02 g 9,10-diphenylanthracene, and 1 mL hydrogen peroxide in vials.
The wind energy experiment saw students building windmills from a plastic set. Then, they blew fans at the windmills and used the generated mechanical energy to light LEDs or lift weights. Students experimented with blade shape, blade positioning, and wind direction to optimize the power output.
After a morning of experiments in the lab, students took a break to eat lunch with faculty from different science and engineering departments across the University of Minnesota and several visiting engineers from Medtronic and Polaris. A huge thanks to all the external volunteers that helped out with lunch!
After lunch, students learned about DNA transcription and translation to RNA and proteins. They learned how to decode mRNA codons to form amino acid sequences whose corresponding letters gave clues to solve a puzzle. In this case, the puzzle was the identity of a character from the television show Spongebob SquarePants. Then, they used their knowledge to encode secret messages into mRNA codons for their classmates to decode.
Finally, students solved a series of riddles and puzzles which involved putting together a map of the university’s campus, finding words out of a book, and arithmetic operations to open up a treasure chest. The treasure? Toppings for liquid nitrogen-cooled ice cream, which they enjoyed on Northrop lawn.
After the ice cream was finished, the science-filled days came to a close. Mentors and students took pictures on the steps of Smith Hall and the students departed for their schools. We hope everyone had a fun and educational day!
