The Junior Chemistry Club has been running since September 2020, and was founded by two Grade 9 students (Jayna S & Alisha W) and our sponsor teacher (Ms. McCaw). Meetings are held every Monday at lunch, from 11:45 am to 12:30 pm, and end in June.
The purpose of the Junior Chemistry Club is:
- To explore fundamental chemistry concepts
- To understand complex conceptions through experimentation and prototyping
- To make accurate hypotheses about various topics, and find a way to prove/disprove them
During the weekly meetings, students are exposed to a multitude of different topics, each of varying difficulties. Meetings are begun with a brief introduction that both summarizes the bigger picture, and provides a snapshot of the day’s experiment. Afterwards, students are given objectives to accomplish, and are tasked with making their own predictions. With the provided materials, they are given time to experiment, following a procedure provided by the club leaders. Afterwards, the leaders facilitate a discussion to talk about the results. If time permits, we delve deeper into the topic, and analyze any questions that come up. While we usually have experiment-based meetings, which allow students to have hands-on learning, we typically have one meeting per month which is more recreational. For example, in February, we played a boisterous game of Jeopardy, in which students had to answer questions about different topics throughout the year thus far.
The club was founded with the intent to provide a means for students to learn more about various chemistry concepts, ones that are not always covered by the curriculum. These meetings have been an enjoyable way for us to expose more students to chemistry, and hopefully inspire them to pursue chemistry later on in their high school years.
Some experiments conducted this year:
- Elephant Toothpaste - Exothermic/Endothermic Reactions
- Lava Lamps - Density
- Lemon Volcanoes - Acid/Base Reactions; Neutralization Reactions
Contributed by Jayna S, Co-Leader of the Junior Chemistry Club and Grade 10 Student