Week 4: BIG News Segment On My Senior Project And Exciting Experiments

Welcome back to my blog!

This week has been a bit of a hectic week. Some very exciting news to share though! My senior project was featured on Spectrum News NY1, you can check out a link to that here

It was super cool that this amazing work was able to be featured!

I was able to do the model volcano experiment with students, and it went pretty well! Unfortunately, the explosions were a little smaller than they should have been because we used large bottles (so the “lava” did not shoot out as high), but students were still interested in the visual reaction! Interestingly, one of the ingredients we used for the model volcano reactions, dishwashing detergent, initially stunted the baking soda and vinegar reaction. I added this ingredient because it was supposed to enhance the reaction (I got this notion from the research I did), but it seemed to totally stop the reaction. That could also be because of the type of dishwashing detergent I used. When doing the experiment I had to adapt on the fly and restart our procedures because of the dishwashing detergent. This was a good learning moment for me though, for I had to work on the fly to make the experiment successful.

For the next program lesson I plan to do the “Carbon Snake” experiment with students. This experiment is extremely visual and neat, so students should be really interested in this reaction. I plan to discuss more about chemical reactions with students this week, and what chemical discoveries are being done to make the world more energy efficient. I am excited to update you on how this experiment goes!

-Luc