Rooms full of children and teenagers playing with fire and blowing things up may be an unusual and nerve-wracking sight, but not at BYU’s Open Lab Day.
On May 9 and 16, the BYU chapter of the American Chemistry Society (known as YChem) opened its lab doors and invited middle- and high-school students to come and experience the thrills of chemistry.
Brittany England, a senior majoring in chemistry, worked behind the scenes to make sure the experiments went safely.
“I like seeing the kids get excited about these labs because they’re things that have become so normal to me,” England said. “I forget how exciting it can be for the first time.”
England said she wants the students to leave the Chem Open Lab Day with a positive experience and to see that chemistry can be fun and exciting.
Jacey Reynolds, a senior majoring in chemistry education, has the same goal.
“These days, people are scared of science and think it’s hard. They don’t realize how enjoyable and fun it can be,” Reynolds said. “Hopefully we’re helping them want to do something in science someday.”
Reynolds has participated in the last two Chem Open Lab Days and wants to continue volunteering for as long as she can.
“It’s a chance for me to do experiments and have fun as well,” Reynolds said, “to interact with the kids and see them enjoy science.”
When a mother of two first heard about the Chem Open Lab Day, she knew she had to sign up her two boys.
“I knew they would be interested. . . . I want to expose them to real life science as much as I can,” she said. “I want them to see that science is fun, it’s interesting, and . . . that they will learn some new things.”
At the end of Open Lab Day, two volunteers presented the Magic Show—a chemistry-filled performance that shows kids cool science experiments..
“There are lots of explosions and things they have never seen before,” Reynolds said. “It’s an opportunity they don’t normally get . . . in their science class.”
YChem’s goal is to show young students that science isn’t just about reading textbooks and memorizing information.
“I want to be a scientist when I grow up,” said a second-grader participant. “I want to do experiments and other cool stuff.”