Sour lemons make learning oh-so-sweet

Middle schoolers at UND summer chemistry camp power lights with lemons and potatoes

When life gives you lemons, forget the lemonade. Make a homemade battery instead.

That was just one of many lessons learned as 20 middle schoolers — wearing bright-blue gloves and protective eyeglasses — gathered around a supersized lab table in the lower level of Abbott Hall.

There, they meticulously poked zinc-coated nails and copper wire into about two dozen lemons and potatoes to learn how much energy a fruit-and-vegetable snake could generate. (The answer, in case you’re wondering, is about 24 volts.)

A day earlier, the young scientists lit up a small string of lights in a similar experiment. They also watched in awe as a bottle of blue solution turned colorless, then blue again, after giving it a shake. They plated the inside of test tubes with silver mirror. And they made double-forked pickles glow yellow.

It was all part of UND’s annual four-day Exploring Chemistry Summer Camp, organized and led by Teaching Associate Professor and Associate Chair for Education Shaina Mattingly. She’s been part of the camp since its start in 2017.

“I absolutely love seeing the kids get enthusiastic and curious about everyday observations or even very simple and safe activities they can do in their kitchens at home,” Mattingly said. “It’s such a thrill to see them connect the chemistry of what’s going on in front of them to what they experience in the outside world.

“It always inspires me and motivates me. It reminds me of why I love my job.”

Exploring everything from paper to polymers

Each day of the camp is designed to focus on a different chemistry-related theme: papermaking and pigments, batteries, chemical reactions and polymers. (Polymers? … Just think Shrinky Dinks and superstretchy slime.)

The summer camp is open to any student entering fifth through eighth grade.

Middle school marks a very “foundational and key developmental” age for children, Mattingly explained.

“At that age, kids are starting to make connections on concepts that can be very complex,” she said. “They’re observing. They’re thinking — always thinking — so it’s really good to challenge them with chemistry experiments that are very visual, hands-on and designed to pique their interest.”

And what possibly could be more interesting than “elephant toothpaste?”

The answer is not much, according to Grand Forks sixth-grader Anthony Harris.

“The elephant toothpaste was my favorite thing,” Anthony said. “It was so much fun. It kind of just foamed up and went over the sides. Our hands were dirty, and we got all crazy with it.”

The concoction — which gets its name because just a tiny squeeze would be fitting for a pack of pachyderms — is made with a plastic bottle and the proper mix of dry yeast, warm water, liquid dish soap and 3% hydrogen peroxide. Mattingly explains the basics of the chemical reaction this way:

The yeast acts as a catalyst that rapidly breaks down the hydrogen peroxide and turns it into oxygen and water.

The oxygen gas forms bubbles that ordinarily would escape from the liquid and quickly pop, but the surface tension from the dish soap traps the bubbles to create a wild fountain of blue foam instead.

It’s a hit every year, Mattingly says — so much so, that she treats the students to a larger-scale demonstration of the experiment on the final day of camp.

“They’ve been waiting for that all week,” she said with a laugh.

(By the way, there are a lot of such fun and easy chemistry experiments for middle schoolers out there. We’ll add some links below, including one with instructions for elephant toothpaste.)

Never a dull moment in the lab

Anyone who can imagine 20 middle schoolers tackling a thick binder of experiments in a full-scale college chemistry lab also will understand how there’s never a dull moment.

And that’s why Mattingly says she appreciates the steady patience and assistance of several college students from the National Science Foundation’s Research Experiences for Undergraduates program.

Johan Dominguez, a physics student at Concordia College in Moorhead, was one of the REU students on hand to help at the camp. He shared that he first was turned on to science while only a fourth-grader at his STEM-based elementary school.

“It’s been really nice seeing these kids have that same experience of slowly connecting the dots,” Dominguez said. “They’re always asking great questions, and the ideas are constantly popping up. It’s been amazing to see them using their critical thinking skills. To be honest, these kids are really smart.”

UND Chemistry graduate student Herbert Che Mughe echoed that sentiment.

“This is my first year working with the camp, and my favorite part has been watching the students get so excited to learn new things,” Che Mughe said. “I think being able to do the experiments hands-on goes a long way toward opening their minds to the possibility of actually venturing into the field of science for a career one day.”

Planting the seeds for lifelong love of science

Mattingly dreams of that, too.

“I’d love to see some of the camp kids end up majoring in Chemistry at UND. That would be my ultimate goal,” she said.

And with seventh-grader Sophie Dorward and sixth-grader Anna Sickler elbow-deep in homemade slime, that possibility was looking more and more likely.

Self-described science fans since “a very young age,” the Grand Forks girls already have aspirations for careers in the field. Sophie says she might like to write science books, and Anna wants to use chemistry to create new medicines.

“At first, I thought camp was going to be just sitting down and doing boring stuff, but it wasn’t anything like that,” Sophie said. “It was a ton more fun because we got to work with our hands. We weren’t just watching and listening to other people explain it.”

Added Anna: “Yeah, I was amazed by how many cool experiments we packed into only four days. It made wearing the goggles and gloves all worth it.”

>> TRY IT YOURSELF. Mattingly shares a Science Buddies recipe for making elephant toothpaste.

>> CAN’T WAIT UNTIL NEXT JULY’S CAMP? Check out the American Chemical Society, the Royal Society of Chemistry Education or Scientific American to find more easy chemistry experiments for middle schoolers.

>> LOCAL STEM EVENTS, CAMPS AND CLUBS. Don’t forget the Dakota Science Center and the Grand Forks Public Library.