Students celebrate National Chemistry Week, Olympic year during SMU Chemistry Nights

WINONA, Minn. — Many area high school juniors and seniors (and their teachers) will be experiencing the importance of chemistry in an athlete’s life via hands-on experiments during upcoming Chemistry Nights at Saint Mary’s University. Interested students are invited onto campus from 5 to 9 p.m. Thursdays, Oct. 23 and 30.

Chemistry Night, sponsored by the SMU Department of Chemistry and the La Crosse-Winona local section of the American Chemical Society, is an annual event designed to help students explore the discipline of chemistry and appreciate the positive role that chemistry plays in our everyday world.

Each year students solve a challenging but fun chemical problem, based on the National Chemistry Week (Oct. 19-25) theme; this year’s theme is “Having a Ball with Chemistry – The Chemistry of Sports.”

Students will work in small teams, using wet chemistry and working with chemical instrumentation in the SMU Department of Chemistry, under the guidance of SMU chemistry majors.

Prizes will be awarded to the teams that have the greatest success in solving the chemical problems arising within the sports area. Prizes will include SMU scholarships of $2,000 and $1,000.

The event is free, and there are still openings. Students who are interested should have their high school science teachers contact Dr. Jim Vogel at (507) 457-1558.