In the Frick Atrium inside Princeton University’s Frick Chemistry Laboratory and the Princeton Neuroscience Institute, the university’s new Science Outreach program launched its signature “Spring Into Science” event on April 22, 2023. Students from fourth through 10th grades, along with their families, were able to get hands-on experience and participate up-close in science activities.

Geosciences graduate students Jenna Lee and Catherine Hexter showcased demonstrations on ocean acidification and cloud formation. The ocean acidification demo explained how increased carbon dioxide, CO₂, in the atmosphere—when it dissolves into the ocean—will lower the pH (potential hydrogen), which is problematic. When the ocean is more acidic there is less building material for things that form shells, Lee and Hexter explained.

“When students see things change or see a color change they become really interested and care about why it is happening, which is really fulfilling,” Hexter said. “Outreach events like this are part of the reason I ended up going to college doing research. I hope this invites people into science.”

For cloud formation, the cloud-in-a-bottle demonstration illustrates that when air moves from a higher pressure at low altitudes to low-pressure/high-altitudes creates a pressurized system compared to the outside, hence ‘creates a cloud’ inside the bottle.

“It has been great to speak with kids of different ages about science,” Lee said. “Not only is it a great experience to test our skills in communicating science but it is really fun to show people about things we hear related to climate and be able to see and understand the physics behind it all.”

Science Outreach at Princeton supports 10 academic departments – Astrophysical Sciences, Center for Statistics and Machine Learning, Chemistry, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Geosciences, Mathematics, Molecular Biology, Physics, Princeton Neuroscience Institute, and Psychology.