PUCS Members Compete at the 2018 ChemExpo

On Saturday, October 20th, PUCS (Princeton University Chemical Society) joined numerous other colleges and high schools at the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City for the annual  ChemExpo. This year’s theme was “Out of This World”.

In order to promote scientific understanding and educational outreach to our youth, the ChemExpo aims to present scientific ideas revolving around the annual theme in a digestable way to our youth to promote curiosity and learning in the field of chemistry.

Representing PUCS, Emily and Ananya gave an enlightening demonstration of spectroscopy by diffraction of white light and different elements. Also, they clarified how scientists can determine the composition of planets through this method!

From toddlers to other volunteers from the colleges and schools nearby, every group presented different concepts in a novel way. Jon, Zsombor, and YJ led the interactive demonstration which allowed the kids to visualize how sunscreen protects our skin from the emitted UV rays that our Sun produces.

Despite sunscreen appearing invisible on our skin to our naked eye, the young scientists discovered that under UV, the sun protectant appears to be black due to the absorption of these rays instead of interacting with our skin.

A special thank you to the students and Kathryn (Kitty) Wagner for helping to foster curiosity to our young and upcoming future scientists!

The Princeton University ChemExpo Team

Left to right: Jon Spires (’20), Zsombor Gal (’22), YJ Choi (’20),  Kitty Wagner (Princeton University Chemistry Lecture Demonstrator), Ananya Vinayak (’22), and Emily Ryu (’21).