STAFF REPORTS
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ALLIANCE, Ohio — Brisa Seibert of Spring Brook was a member of the CHE 115 class that taught chemistry to Alliance Middle School and Marlington Middle School students.
Thanks to Dr. Sheryl Mason’s Organic and Biochemistry for Nursing class at the University of Mount Union, higher level scientific principles were taught to elementary students using engaging hands-on experiments.
Mason, assistant professor of chemistry at Mount Union, told her students to not only explain the basics of the demo, but also come up with applications to medicine and health in the human body.
One presentation was the growling gummy bear experiment. It consisted of burning sugar with potassium chlorate, setting the gummy bear into flames, thus creating the “growling” name.
That experiment was simply one of the numerous experiments presented by the Mount Union students. Others included: Taking the iron out of cereal, neutralizing acids and bases, and using “Glow-germ” lotion to show the importance of washing your hands with soap and using a chemical reaction between two salts.
One of the important pieces of having the Mount Union students teach scientific concepts to the elementary students was having the elementary students interact in a hands-on fashion with their collegiate presenters.
The University of Mount Union, founded in 1846, is a four-year, private institution grounded in the liberal arts tradition. The University is located in Alliance, OH, 80 miles of both Cleveland and Pittsburgh. Mount Union offers an array of broad-based and career-specific undergraduate and graduate programs to its 2,300 students who experience outstanding opportunities for success after graduation. The University is committed to providing a student-centered approach and an exceptional educational experience. For more information, visit mountunion.edu.
