Chemistry club showcases at market

On April 19 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., Delta’s American Chemical Society (ACS) Club hosted its  “Chemistry in Action!” presentation at The Market at Delta. 

“When you watch videos online … I think it often feels like the people in those videos just know everything about chemistry and that if you really don’t understand what they’re saying, then you’re not cut out for chemistry,” said Abner Arias, president of the ACS Club. “However, these are students running these demos. And so we’re explaining things to students and we’re having regular conversations, so you get to see that ‘chemists’ are just people. I think that is the biggest impact that we can have on the community is that you can just be you, but you can still be a chemist.”

The event marks the first collaboration of The Market’s monthly carnival initiative, Delta College Kids’ Discovery Days, where clubs at Delta were showcased during the weekend event. The Market had been in plans to bring out Delta clubs for showcases since 2024.

“This was where we turn the corner down a path of going from, ‘you know, you’ve seen how we’ve had crafts and planting events;’ but, this turned a corner to involving an educational aspect to it. An aspirational aspect where we’re looking to see a long-term result,” said Eric Carey, the director of The Market. “I’m sure that there were several kids that were inspired to either do these experiments at home, or take a look beyond where they’ve looked so far in terms of education and in terms of science in general. And we may see some of those kids land at Delta College.”

At the main entrance booth of The Market, ACS Club members set up stations with various science experiments. Members of the ACS club helped motion participants through experiments and helped explain the science behind them. The experiments ranged their level of interactivity from largely demonstrative to a hands-on experience.

“It’s cool, it’s fun and most importantly, you can do science experiments. I love the experiments,” said Ethan Mejia, child and guest at The Market.

Lava lamps were displayed at one station of the booth. ACS club members added pieces of Alka-Seltzer to bottles of vegetable oil and water of various colors, activating bubbles in the lava lamp. The lava lamp bottles were put on top of lights to further enhance the effect. 

“One of our new demos, the lava lamp, it helped confirm something in my mind that I had been thinking. That kids will enjoy something that they are able to watch as well as do. We always try to make sure that everything’s really hands-on; but the lava lamps, they pretty much put in an Alka-Seltzer tablet. And they looked to enjoy that as well,” Arias said. “I was able to learn from it, to learn more of … ‘how can I take everyday, commonplace activities, or actions or items and incorporate chemistry into them?’”

D.I.Y baking soda volcanos were experimented with at a different station. The experiment had vinegar in paper cups on plates, with several vials of food coloring for participants to choose from. After adding the dye of choice, a large spoonful of baking soda was dumped into the cup by the participant or a club member, creating an eruption of foam spilling onto the plate.

“I like the volcano one ‘cause mine just kept going, and going, and going and going,” said Emma Mejia, child and sister of Ethan Mejia.

Two tubs of oobleck were laid out at one station. After ACS club members mixed corn starch with water into the tubs, participants could reach their hands into the resulting oobleck to play with the mixture. Participants were also able to mix dye with their hands into the oobleck, and received a new batch of oobleck once the oobleck in one tub dried up.

A basket at the booth offered goods for sale that were 3D printed with polylactic acid in-house by the ACS club — being an SJDC-branded pencil case with complementary stationery, as well as a set of cookie cutters shaped like volumetric, round-bottom and Erlen-Meyers flasks with an included sugar cookie recipe sheet taken from J. Saunders on Allrecipes.

The “Chemistry in Action!” presentation saw a large number of guests at The Market, with unprecedented numbers from any past Discovery Days showcase. Unusually, most of the attendance was concentrated in the earlier hours of the showcase, the opposite for most other Discovery Days events. Carey attributes this to the coincidence of various Easter-themed community events in the area that day.

After the presentation had concluded and the ACS Club had closed their booth at 1 p.m., the members then went to tour The Market before the vendors operating in the lot started to pack up.

“The Delta students are really busy and we love going out into the community; however, we’re not able to do as many events as we would like to for the students and for the community because we have to be on campus a lot. And schools cannot bring their students to campus because it’s really expensive.” Arias said. “If students were able to come on campus and we were able to do our demos here on campus like we did here at The Market, then we would be able to reach so many more students and have these events more consistently.

While the carnival has come and gone, readers can still pursue science in the comfort of their very own home for these simple D.I.Y projects. Use caution when undertaking these projects.

Lava Lamp

Supplies Water Water Vegetable oil, cooking oil or baby oil Alka-Seltzer Food coloring (optional) Directions 1. Fill clear container a third of the way with oil. 2. Mix water with food coloring, then pour water into oil until two thirds of container is filled. 3. Break up Alka-Seltzer tablet into smaller pieces. 4. Add a piece of the Alka-Seltzer tablet into the container, make sure that lid is loosened when using a closed container. Bubbling effect lasts around 30 seconds, repeat afterwards with other pieces of the Alka-Seltzer tablet.

Volcano

Supplies Small paper cup Baking soda Vinegar  Dish soap (optional) Food coloring (optional) Directions 1. Fill cup with vinegar. 2. Add food coloring to vinegar to preference, then optionally add a few drops of dish soap to cup. 3. Scoop out baking soda with a large spoon, then quickly dump into cup. Volcano will start foaming and spill from cup.

Oobleck

Supplies 1 ½ cup corn starch 1 cup water Tempera paint or food coloring (optional) Directions 1. Pour corn starch into pie pan. 2. Add water to pan and mix, add more water or cornstarch as needed as well as dye to preference. 3. Keep mixing until oobleck tears when scraped with a finger and melts back together afterwards.

Editor’s note: An abbreviated version of this story ran in the May 6 print issue of The Collegian.