Science festival fun

Throughout March, our employees and members had some great opportunities to inspire school students and inform the general public about the chemical sciences at two science festivals.

Crystals in Cambridge

On 15 March, nearly 30 members of staff shared their passion for chemistry at the Cambridge Science Festival. As part of the annual festival’s ‘Science on Saturday’ event, which sees around 100 events for all ages at venues across the city, we set up a stand with a range of activities that reflected the theme of chemistry and art at the University of Cambridge chemistry department.

Participants both young and old helped us to catch an art thief at our chromatography stand, learned how to make their own crystals at home and were challenged to see how quickly they could build their own diamond! One of our volunteers explained why our crystal-growing activity elicited a wide-eyed response from children and adults alike: “Those attending our stand were really interested in the chemistry behind crystals, and the link back to handwarmers helped to put across the message that chemistry is present in everyday life.”

Big Bang in Birmingham

Meanwhile, in Birmingham, our staff and local members joined forces to present hands-on experiments to more than 5,000 pupils, teachers and families in just four days between 13 and 16 March. The Big Bang UK Young Scientists and Engineers Fair is the biggest event of its kind in the UK, and this year took place at the Birmingham NEC.

Visitors to the Royal Society of Chemistry stand discovered ‘colourful chemistry’ through exploring the science behind chromatography, thermochromic materials and classic colour change redox reactions. They also had the opportunity to try out one of our flagship outreach activities, Spectroscopy in a Suitcase, by running Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectra to identify paint samples. And they had a chance to learn about how art historians use this technique to date paintings and even detect fraud.