11/2016

The Bay Area Science Festival Discovery Day was a success! The Center of Selective C-H Functionalization (CCHF) was represented at the AT&T Park by a total of 20 scientists; that included graduate and postdoc volunteers from the Sarpong (Jason Pflueger, Brian Wang, Benjamin Wyler, Kyle Owens, Rebecca Johnson, Laura Lang, Shelby McCowen, Melecio Perea, Nicolle Doering, Melissa Hardy, Jessica Burch, Michael Ropke), Du Bois (Shyam Sathyamoorthi, Nick Chiappini, James Mack, Aaron Bedell, Doris Tang, Steve Sarno) and Borovik Groups (Maisha Kamunde-Devonish), as well as the Center EOD Director, Dr. Lloyd Munjanja. The volunteers came to the Center booth throughout the day and creatively engaged with the different age groups. The majority of the participants were between the ages of 4-12 year old.

We estimate to have engaged with more than 200 young kids at the science festival. We had lots of Center promotional material for all the demos that parents took home for their kids to review later. The Californina Snow Demo (sodium polyacrylate absorbing water) was very popular with the young crowds and they loved to see the polymer expand. The kids were more engaged with the demos because they could “touch”, “smell” and “see” them.