Our chapter’s main goal is to educate the community and their children on the wonders science holds, in the class room and in the environment. We direct the majority of our programs towards children and their parents. Our big accomplishment is instilling a focus on green chemistry and the environment within these children. In order to achieve our goals, we hosted a large variety of events some of which included chemistry speakers, researchers, and professionals who had come out to speak to the student body and community and share their experiences. We do a few large programs each year as well. The Taste of the Sciences is a program that brought 150 girl scouts to campus to learn about chemistry, biology, and forensics with a candy spin for national chemistry week. We held a STEM Girl Scout program where we took another large group of girls and taught them the different ideas that they can use to do science, technology, engineering, and math in fun ways. Eco Fun Day is an event that brings a local middle school to Angelica Park and we hold a day of conservation activities to teach them about the environment and how to protect it. Science Day is a full day that we bring 5th and 6th graders from inner city Reading to learn about and get interested in science and education. We hosted a summer camp where we partnered with Carpenter Technologies to bring out 150 kids for 5 days in the summer to learn about chemistry, engineering, and physics. We also did many smaller events all semester long with 10-50 kids which ranged from girl scouts events involving forensic science, water, style, and home chemistry, also we have a partnership with Muhlenberg and Berks Parks where we do events with their local children on chemistry and the environment. We also hosted our Green Chemistry Week activities. We participated in a stress buster week on campus for the first time, where we applied chemistry activities to reducing stress. Overall, our chapter successfully increased the awareness and interest in the sciences, and promoted community outreach.

Programming our youth through chemistry

251st National Meeting (2016)

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