Chemistry Day

Chemistry Day at the University of Minnesota, 1997

A National Chemistry Week Event

Explosions,	Reactions,	Fun
Oh, my...

The Department of Chemistry at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis hosted the sixth Chemistry Day as part of National Chemistry Week on November 1. The morning event was attended by over 600 local high school students and teachers and featured the world famous chemical showmen Lee Marek, Bob Lewis, and DeWayne Lieneman. Their show "Weird Science" lasted about 90 minutes and included lots of exciting chemical demonstrations, many involving members of the audience. The show received great local publicity. We had 4 minutes of live TV coverage from channel 11 (KARE TV), photos in the Star and Tribune Newspaper, and a video clip on the channel 4 evening news. All mentioned National Chemistry Week.

Lunch was provided for all the students and teachers attending. The afternoon event was open to the public and an estimated extra 200 people attended. The afternoon show consisted of many interesting exhibits and demonstrations by local colleges and companies, demonstrations by local high school students and by the Chemistry Department's outreach student group, tours of the department's state-of-the-art instrumentation facilities featuring "The Day in the Life of a Molecule (the tour showed a molecule being synthesized and real live analyses by mass spectroscopy, NMR, and X-ray crystallography; each student got spectra and an ORTEP drawing of the molecular structure to take home), chemistry bingo, and the World of Chemistry Videos. The day was concluded by an encore performance by the Weird Science group and a give away of about 50 National Chemistry T-shirts and many chemistry text books as door prizes.

The Chemistry Department has been hosting this even every other year for the past 10 years with great success and local publicity. The pictures show some of the this year's Chem Day activities.

Smith Hall
207 Pleasant Street S.E.
Minneapolis, MN 55455-0431
U.S.A.
(612) 624-6000

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