Le Département de chimie de l’Université Laval hosted two interactive workshops in celebration of National Chemistry Week, held last October, thanks in part to a Chemical Education Fund grant from the Chemical Institute of Canada to Attraction chimique. The workshops took place at the Salon Carrière Formation de Québec in Québec City. About 1,000 participants cooked up – and ate! – their own molecular caviar using agar and alginate, two chemicals extracted from algae. Students were pleasantly surprised by the sweet taste of their maple syrup caviar. They also had the opportunity to investigate a ‘murder,’ using a lipid dye to reveal a fingerprint left on a piece of paper at a ‘crime scene.’ Comparing this evidence to a suspect data bank allowed them to solve the crime. Teens left with a sense of accomplishment — and a full stomach — thanks to chemistry.
