Our very own senior graduate students Seth Johnson and Logan Lancaster, along with postdoctoral scholar Taylor Krueger helped lead several interactive and engaging Chemistry activities for Latinx high school students throughout Oregon at Academia Juntos 2025 on June 24-25. The week-long camp that introduces students to STEM fields and campus life was highlighted by a fun yet competitive rendition of chemistry-themed Jeopardy led by Seth featuring the fan favorite Elephant's Toothpaste and other demonstrations as Daily Doubles. Logan led a modified version of a standard general chemistry lab that Freshmen students often encounter at Oregon State University (OSU), which measures the food dye content in commercial beverages like Gatorade using Beer-Lambert Law (see pictures below).
The Chemistry portion of the activities was capped off with the Juntos students eagerly mixing the ingredients to make liquid nitrogen ice cream as a refreshing treat during the hot Oregon summer at the Linus Pauling Science Center Student Street. Kudos to Seth, Logan, and Taylor for leading this memorable 8th rendition of the Annual Juntos Chemistry Camp (JCC), which traces to its inauguration event co-founded by Prof. Chong Fang and then-OSU-Juntos Program Coordinator (Yamhill County) Jose Garcia in June 2017!
