Will Kirk / Homewood Photography
The Department of Materials Science and Engineering recently celebrated National Engineers Week (February 21 through 27) with an afternoon workshop designed to introduce participants to materials science through food.
Experiment stations were set up in the department’s labs in Maryland and Krieger Halls, and visitors were invited to experience to learn about materials science through their senses of smell, touch, taste, sight and sound. Activities included exploring the chemistry of why Pop Rocks candy fizzes and crackles when it hits your tongue and gazing at chocolate under a scanning electron microscope. The workshop was led by Jennifer Dailey, a doctoral student in the department. She also was the instructor for a very popular food-focused intersession course called “Chocolate: An Introduction to Materials Science” in January.
“The reason I got into materials science is because they had the coolest demos,” said Paul Lambert, a graduate student in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and one of the event volunteers.