Chemistry outreach seems to be practiced by every chemistry department around the country. Chemistry students and practicing chemists alike invest time and effort into teaching younger students and the general public in a variety of unique informal learning environments. Large national chemistry organizations promote such outreach through funding opportunities and awards. Given how ubiquitous outreach is in the chemistry enterprise, the lack of scholarly investigation into outreach is startling. The National Academies recognized this gap and characterized <i>Effective Chemistry Communication in Informal Environments</i> in 2016, a report from the perspective of practicing chemists. The report lacked the perspectives of college students, even though collegiate chapters of the American Chemical Society and Alpha Chi Sigma reach almost a million people each year through their outreach. This prompted multiple scholarly investigations of collegiate chemistry outreach practices. Building on results from a national survey, an in-depth qualitative study was developed using a novel research method which combines electronic surveys, semi-structured protocols, instant messaging, and student artifacts. The method allowed for increased access to college student outreach practitioners, and the successful elicitation of their ideas to address the following research questions: 1) What are college students’ perceived purpose(s) of conducting chemistry outreach? 2) What are college students’ beliefs about age-appropriate chemistry content when conducting the liquid nitrogen ice cream demonstration? and 3) How well do students conceptually understand the chemistry embedded in the liquid nitrogen ice cream demonstration? Preliminary results from these interviews (<i>N</i> = 37) will be presented with emphasis placed on comparing intended purpose(s) of outreach, age-appropriate content, and students’ conceptual chemistry understanding of the liquid nitrogen ice cream demonstration. Implications for planning and implementing outreach events and conducting rigorous qualitative investigations will also be presented in light of these preliminary findings.

Liquid nitrogen ice cream: College student conceptual chemistry understanding and intended goals for chemistry outreach events

255th National Meeting (2018)

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