Forming more than chemical bonds
Children and their parents explored chemistry with the Beijing Local Section
Our Beijing Local Section joined forces with the Family Education Department of the China National Childrens’ Center in an effort to encourage parents and their children to spend time together while exploring the fascination of chemistry.
On six Saturday mornings over three months, thirty parent-and-child pairs carried out a variety of experiments using everyday household materials. In addition to making chemical traffic lights with red cabbage indicator, preparing alginate worms, comparing the amounts of vitamin C in apples, tomatoes and red peppers, and launching rockets powered by vinegar and bicarbonate of soda, they even had a chance to take home materials for additional experiments.
“In the first session, one or two of the parents were not sufficiently involved, and rather more tried to take over and not let their child stretch themselves. But gradually we found that parents and children began to work together more effectively,” explains Beijing Local Section Chair David Evans. “In the future we are planning to run training courses for staff in the network of Childrens’ Centers throughout China in order to allow the programme to be repeated elsewhere across the country.”
