Can you make batteries out of lemons? What is it like to be a researcher? How can chemistry and chemical engineering become a career path for me – and why is it important for society as a whole? During this autumn, many students from both primary and secondary schools came to the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering to carry out laboratory experiments, meet researchers, and receive support with chemical analyses for their upper secondary projects.
October and November have been particularly busy months for school outreach at the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at Chalmers University of Technology. In total, around 130 pupils and their teachers took part in laboratory sessions and met with researchers.
“Chemical engineering plays a major role in the development of a sustainable society, and there will be a great demand for trained chemical engineers in the future. Inspiring more young people to take an interest in chemistry and chemical engineering is an important issue that concerns us all,” says Ulf Jäglid, who coordinated the visits and is Assistant Head of Department, undergraduate Education.
Lemons turned into LEDs
The first visit involved 100 eight graders from Nygårdsskolan. The pupils alternated between making lemon batteries in the chemistry laboratories and meeting some of the department’s researchers, who talked about how they use chemistry and chemical engineering to develop new technological solutions in fields such as green energy, sustainable, smarter materials and engineering processes.
“In our collaborations with schools, we want to show how fun and exciting it can be to experiment in a well-equipped chemistry lab. The pupils and teachers who participated this autumn have been very pleased, which is both rewarding and encouraging for our continued outreach work,” says Ulf Jäglid.
Support in school projects and professional development for teachers
During the autumn half-term break, several upper secondary students from schools across the Gothenburg region received help with chemical analyses for their final-year research projects. A group of teachers and educators from Molekylverkstan in Stenungsund also spent a day of their holiday taking part in professional development activities, guided by researchers from the department.
On Wednesday 5 November, another group visited Chalmers for laboratory work – around twenty students from Kunskapsgymnasiet studied surface tension.
Several PhD students and senior researchers at the department have contributed as guides and supervisors in the lab sessions, as well as welcoming visits to their research groups. Without this internal commitment, these school collaborations would not have been possible.
“We have now developed a good concept that is feasible to run and that we can offer to pupils and teachers again. In the long term, we would very much like to find a way to make this a more regular activity,” says Ulf Jäglid.
- Senior Teaching Fellow, Energy and Materials, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering