Today's outreach event was situated at the Boys and Girls Club in the southeast area of DC. As usual, the event was very well organized with wonderful volunteer turnout---Stacy and the entire team did a tremendous job and should feel really proud of the event!!
The kids (and their parents) were enthralled by a variety of age appropriate experiments ranging from the old standby of 'flubber' to 'new sense about cents' to 'density batons' to 'the nose knows' and so many others! The volunteers also had fun seeing (and trying) the new experiments being presented and sharing ideas on how to improvise variations of each one (you can never stop chemists from experimenting)!!
I had some great conversations with the kids....from one young man of about 10 years old who told me he liked science 'better than video games' to a young woman who said 'I really like science and math as you can use what you learn to solve problems"! I truly don't know who gets more out of all of this....the volunteers or the students! I also had the chance to meet lots of great members today....from long time DC area volunteers, Ann and Francis Leslie (Ann was also a councilor for 20 years)...to the students from Ball State who drove here in the university-donated E85 van (and had to locate the only E85 station in West Virginia).....to all of the volunteers from the Puerto Rico section...Ruth Woodall and team....and so many others!!
I included a few photos of the day to help capture some of the energy and fun we had working with these future scientists!!! Here's to everyone there today 'paying it forward' in our communities! You are all awesome! Thank You!!
