Recently the Drakensberg Boys Choir School had the pleasure of welcoming Mr Brits (M.Sc Chemical Eng.) to our school.
He showed the boys that learning science can be fun and that there is always time to play. Mr Brits, who is a qualified Chemical Engineer, prepared a slide show for the grade eights and nines about what makes up engineering and the many fields that one may specialize in, once graduated.
He also added in the high school subjects needed to study engineering, and of course maths and physics were highlighted. In addition to the slide show, he demonstrated the following experiments in class:
• An electrochemistry experiment, which showed how to plate copper from solution (copper sulphate).
• Making colour on titanium with electricity. This entailed the usage of different voltages to obtain different colours on the titanium (all colours except black) in a diluted solution of sulphuric acid.
• He showed a time-lapse video on crystal formation in a copper tank house.
Outside, experiments were conducted to demonstrate how chemicals added together may cause a reaction with an unknown time line. This was intended as a cautionary display to highlight how dangerous chemicals can be, as they may react at any time.
Therefore, one must always know what they are doing and never just repeat something from Google without doing extensive research. The experiments included a chlorine bomb (using chlorine, sugar and water…your kids might tell you more about the detailed experiment, as some were chosen to conduct the experiment); a rocket (a bottle with some water) being shot up into the air using a bicycle pump, which showed how pressure worked; and lastly, a container which ignited due to the added chemicals reacting slowly with each other.
Once these explosive experiments were completed, a few junior boys remained behind to have their own little competition with the rocket, to see who was able to propel it the highest. Geo Kirsten won this competition.
Needless to say both Mr Brits and the students who attended this science expo, had an immense amount of fun and the boys learnt a few fun tricks, as well as some knowledge on how to be safe whilst having fun with science.A huge thanks to Mr Brits from us all at Drakies, for all his hard work over the past week preparing for Saturday, and for giving up his time to focus on my favourite subject, science.
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