Through the 2014-2015 academic year, the Utah State University ACS student chapter has maintained a focus on two primary goals: to propagate interest in chemistry and knowledge of basic chemical principles as widely as possible, and to provide our members and students in the USU Chemistry and Biochemistry department with opportunities for networking and professional development.<br/>Historically, the vast majority of our efforts addressing our first goal have been focused on performing after-school demonstrations at local elementary and middle schools. This year we have enjoyed a fruitful collaboration with USU’s College of Science by performing demonstrations at their Science Unwrapped events. We strive to select vivid and memorable demonstrations. Our demonstrations are performed with an emphasis placed on safety, and on an explanation of the relevant chemical phenomena. The Science Unwrapped events reliably attract a large number of curious students and our demonstrations at these events have been particularly successful.<br/>As part of our second goal, we recruited several graduate students and undergraduate researchers from the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry to present in a poster session which we held in the Chemistry building during National Chemistry Week. We received funding from the department for the preparation of a periodic table of cupcakes, consisting of 118 cupcakes decorated with a corresponding elemental symbol. We distributed cards for each of the elements to our presenters which they gave out to those who stopped to listen to the presentations.<br/>This year we have restructured the leadership of our chapter to include a branch devoted to community outreach and one devoted to campus activities in order to more efficiently focus our efforts. We strive to seed a desire in young students to pursue careers in chemistry. We also work to encourage the general public to learn more about chemistry and chemical research and to provide students in our department with opportunities and experience to further their education. These efforts are made possible through the tremendous support we receive from Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, the College of Science, and the faculty.

Propagating education in chemistry

249th National Meeting (2015)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.