I love fall! The colorful leaves. Pumpkin spiced everything. Apple cider. The cooler temperatures…oh wait. Where we live, at least, it’s been in the 90s for what feels like forever! We actually set record highs on October 1st and 2nd. Even though it doesn’t FEEL like fall, the days are definitely getting shorter, and when I go to Trader Joe’s, there is no shortage of pumpkin spice food.
My love of fall spills over into my STEM Launcher classes this year, as I designed 5 classes just for fall. These classes will ONLY be offered in October and November. From pumpkin spice slime to extracting DNA from your carved pumpkins, there’s something for everyone! (no pumpkins were harmed in the making of the pumpkin spice slime) And the best part? All of these classes are $15 or less!
Here’s the lineup of our limited-time fall classes:
Extracting DNA From Your Halloween Pumpkins All living things have DNA- including the pumpkin that’s sitting on your front porch! In this class, we’ll learn about the structure of DNA and extract some DNA from that pumpkin using things you probably already have in your kitchen!
Hands-On Science: The Bubbling, Oozing Jack O’Lantern In this class, we spend some time learning about chemical reactions before learning how to make your carved pumpkin bubble and ooze!
Pumpkin Spice Slime You’ve had pumpkin spice lattes, pumpkin bread, and you may even have a pumpkin spice candle. But have you ever made pumpkin spice slime? In this class, we put a seasonal twist on a favorite science experiment after talking about polymer chemistry.
The Chemistry of Colorful Fall Leaves If you live in a place where the leaves change color every year, you’ve probably wondered how it happens. In this class, we talk about how and why leaves change color, why leaves fall off the trees (spoiler: they don’t!), and I even include instructions for an experiment that you can try at home to extract and separate the colors of the leaves in your backyard!
Trick-or-Treat! Halloween Candy Chromatography After trick-or-treating, you probably have more candy than you know what to do with. Put some of it to good use while learning some science in Halloween Candy Chromatography. All you need are some Skittles or M&Ms and a few other basic supplies to learn about separating mixtures and analyzing dyes.
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