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7 Days of STEM kicks off
YOUNGSTOWN
Students cheered with excitement with each experiment Monday afternoon at the 7 Days of STEM kickoff at the Chaney Campus, 731 S. Hazelwood Ave.
This was the first on-stage hosting event in a school setting for OH WOW! The Roger and Gloria Jones Children’s Center for Science and Technology, said Katie Seminara, its assistant manager.
Audra Carlson, OH WOW! education director, led the event, and students were selected to assist with various experiments.
Eight were chosen to apply the elastic energy of rubber bands by placing them on watermelons until they exploded.
It didn’t stop there.
“How many of you have seen liquid nitrogen?” Carlson asked when introducing the next experiment. Three students tried marshmallows that were frozen by the substance far below freezing temperatures.
7 Days of STEM is Youngstown’s Regional Science Festival brought to the community by OH WOW! The festival is to help educate and inform the community about science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
The festival will run to Sept. 21.
“Scientists are all about trying things and making mistakes,” Carlson said before carrying out another experiment.
Students added potassium iodide to the test tubes, which contained hydrogen peroxide. Carlson said this causes the oxygen to release, which resulted in colorful foam gushing out of the tubes — much to students’ awe.
The final experiment involved shooting a ping-pong ball straight through an aluminum can that caused such a high-pitched sound that students were asked to cover their ears.
Speakers were also featured throughout the event. Howard Mettee, a chemistry professor at Youngstown State University, explained the first periodic table — despite a couple of interruptions with two watermelons exploding after students placed a lot of rubber bands around them.
Speaker Charles Uray, a retired civil engineer who helped to develop Interstate 80, had also attended Chaney in his youth.
Mike Hripko, deputy director of workforce and educational outreach from America Makes, explained what 3-D printing technology was all about comparing it to traditional printing.
“In 3-D printing, we do the exact same thing” as black and white printing, he said. “But with plastic.”
The event closed with OH WOW! staff using a sling shot to launch free T-shirts into the crowd.