smaerd
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Starting a Science Club at University
I'm a student at a small commuter college in the U.S. I started trying to get some people interested in originally a "Chemistry and Natural Sciences
club" but this wasn't to much of a success. We've broadened it to pretty much a Science club, to expand interest and appeal to more fields.
Most clubs lure people in with food and field trips but that's not science(even though they will be there)... I've been considering setting up a
little table in the "science wing" of the building. I would like to incorporate Biology, Chemistry, and Physics demonstrations. All of them have to be
ridiculously safe, contained, etc.
Do any of you guys and gal's have any suggestions? So far here is what we're working with:
1. Use bottled dilute beta-carboline solutions exposed to UV light to show-case chemilumensense(sorry if this is the wrong term for this). I thought
this was neat because next to it would be a sign saying that these compounds are endogenus to the
human body and it glows... ooo neat.
2. Show-case a home-made magnetic stir plate stirring a water solution with green food-dye in it(yea lame right), but it has motion and could catch
someones attention?
3. Show the life-cycle of a mushroom from sporeprint(and microscope image)->mycellium->epoxy encased fruit-bodies.
4. Make an "invisible" beaker inside of another beaker by using RF values of borosilicate glass and mineral oil?
Maybe bring a *lap-top in to show a video or something, but it's hard to think of what to display(No audio would be best as hall-ways are busy and
classes are in session). Maybe someone here has a good idea? 
Maybe some kind of simple crystalline structure that catches the eye? CuSO4? hmm..
Mole day would be a good day to celebrate something, but it's hard to think of solid mole-day idea's that won't make me/us into a total ass, so once
again any advice is REALLY appreciated .
Thanks so much!
[Edited on 15-9-2010 by smaerd]
[Edited on 15-9-2010 by smaerd]
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psychokinetic
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Sounds like some pretty good ideas.
Other good ideas include pretty colours
(What's a lab top?)
“If Edison had a needle to find in a haystack, he would proceed at once with the diligence of the bee to examine straw after straw until he found
the object of his search.
I was a sorry witness of such doings, knowing that a little theory and calculation would have saved him ninety per cent of his labor.”
-Tesla
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smaerd
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lap-top sorry, lol.
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psychokinetic
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Oh gotchya. Here I was thinking this was some cool scientific apparatus 
“If Edison had a needle to find in a haystack, he would proceed at once with the diligence of the bee to examine straw after straw until he found
the object of his search.
I was a sorry witness of such doings, knowing that a little theory and calculation would have saved him ninety per cent of his labor.”
-Tesla
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Ozone
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chemilumensense = chemiluminescence, which is not what you get with b-carboline. Under UV, in this case, you will get fluoresescence--which would be
neater if it involved the actual b-carboline-containing scorpions .
Make sure you understand the difference between luminescence types:
1. fluorescence, singlet relaxation, ns lifetimes
2. phosphorescence, intersystem cross and relaxation from triplet state, emission wavelength> than fluorescence and lifetimes range from ms to
minutes.
3. delayed fluorescence, fluorescent emission within phosphorescent lifetimes, due to re-excitiation of triplet to singlet state via thermal
mechanism.
4. Chemiluminescence, output of light resulting from a chemical reaction (not merely an excited MO). Examples include luminol oxidation, TCPO or DNPO
(oxalate ester) oxidation (cyalume rxn), luciferin/luciferase (think fireflies). Frequently, the reaction tyields an energetic state which excites a
dye in-situ (cyalume) or, infrequently, emits light itself (luminol).
Anyway, cool idea, go for it !
Cheers,
O3
picture from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorpion
-Anyone who never made a mistake never tried anything new.
--Albert Einstein
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12AX7
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Amazingly, at one meeting of Chemistry Club, at my last school, one of the faculty demonstrated nitrogen triiodide, which he had carefully prepared
beforehand (in the fume hood). So there is some hope left in the world.
Tim
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smaerd
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@psychokinetic - Thanks for the reassurance and the interest
@Ozone - that is ridiculously neat! I may not be able to have one of the scorpions handy but a picture could suffice to demonstrate it's occurrence in
nature as well as in the human body(which is of course in nature as well).
I also really appreciate the explanation on the different kinds of luminescence. Accuracy is critical especially for someone doing a demonstration.
@12AX7 - sounds like a neat compound, it just doesn't sound hall-way safe
I think I've got enough here to get cracking on compiling information/research and making a poster, thanks everyone. Then off to study calculus and
trigonometry in hopes of not getting a migraine.
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DDTea
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smaerd, if you like the picture of scorpion, you should look into UV and NIR photography. there's a website somewhere with lots of pictures of
flowers in the UV range; however, you might come across as an avant-garde photography club instead of a science club.
"In the end the proud scientist or philosopher who cannot be bothered to make his thought accessible has no choice but to retire to the heights in
which dwell the Great Misunderstood and the Great Ignored, there to rail in Olympic superiority at the folly of mankind." - Reginald Kapp.
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Ozone
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Thanks. I really get into UV-photography, and it tends to drive my research. Here's a good-one you can do (gelatin or other polymer gelled in water
containing disodium fluorescein).
Cheers,
O3
-Anyone who never made a mistake never tried anything new.
--Albert Einstein
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Elawr
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Set off a thermite reaction. ...Few spectacles are more impressive than that of AL and iron oxide mixture; as it transforms, in a fountain of sparks
and flame, into a blindingly incandescent puddle of molten iron!
Easy and relatively cheap too.
1
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cyanureeves
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electroplating
you cant go wrong with simple electroplating.copper acetate.nickel sulfate.silver nitrate solutions converting to the chlorides and such.i am still
awed by the whole electron transfer thing.
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Sandmeyer
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Quote: Originally posted by smaerd  | I'm a student at a small commuter college in the U.S. I started trying to get some people interested in originally a "Chemistry and Natural Sciences
club" but this wasn't to much of a success.
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Probably because you didn't give them ipods.
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