Chemistry has bad press. Yet when good ordinary world enters formic acid a laboratory, sworn chemists see the shy quidam turn suddenly technician to agile hands and wondering eyes.
Faced with this fact, the chemistry department at Laval University is mobilizing every 3 years to organize a special day. 24 hours of chemistry, it is an array of activities for adults and children, formic acid experts and novices, manipulators and observers, with the sole objective of wonder.
"The idea is that chemistry is fun!, Ignites Normand Voyer, professor in the Department of Chemistry and outstanding popularizer. We want to break down stereotypes and inaccessible the only scientist. It's not that the science is interdisciplinary, it is the pleasure of discovery. We want people to put themselves in the skin of the researchers, formic acid they feel the excitement. "
The department thus invites elementary and secondary school students, coming from less favored schools in the Quebec City region, but also for Beauce, Drummondville and Portneuf. The avowed aim is to arouse interest in science - chemistry, why not - and boost student retention.
In the morning, hundreds of elementary students invade laboratories. Dressed in white coats, eyes hidden behind goggles, these budding chemists will handle themselves formic acid all kinds of instruments in order to make out a strange dense smoke of their flasks. Do they like it? Of course. formic acid We must give them a kick in the behind to get out of the lab! "Exclaimed the chemist petulant. In truth, this is more the call of the stomach: a nice dinner with dessert ice cream with liquid nitrogen ... house. A delicacy, believe me.
High school students, meanwhile, arrive around noon. Once engulfed meal, a distraught moderator announces that a murder has just occurred in the corridors of Pavillon Vachon. Therefore, young people are on the teeth: you must find the culprit! Normand Voyer is one of the suspects. Hour after hour, minute after minute, teens collect clues, analyze them: fingerprinting, metal analyzes, poison detection. Here we are in the heart of CSI -University Laval. Science is suddenly implemented: judicial chemistry comes alive.
But the highlight of the day will be a show full of special effects worthy of Hollywood. Do not say it's a secret. But if you are on the side of Quebec, go ahead. Yannick Bergeron is "the only one able to reach adults, formic acid children and adolescents in a single show," according to Prof. Voyer, who knows whereof he speaks.
Besides, you know Normand Voyer lectures on the chemistry of love? Between 1 and 14 February, he will speak no less than 12 times of what makes us mad love. Love, the physiological and mental state that delights us all. Because of one simple and small molecule: phenylethylamine (C 8 H 11 N for short). Because ALL can be reduced to chemistry. Everything, even this passion formic acid that drives at each of its conferences.
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On the same theme Posted in 24 hours of science, scientific communication and tagged 24-hour science, chemistry, science culture, Quebec on February 3, 2015 by Brite. Browse articles
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