A Community Outreach Chemistry Lab Success in a Pandemic

ABSTRACT

This project report highlights a simple yet effective outreach lab benefiting the community partner, specifically the Alameda Point Collaborative (APC) youth program and Saint Mary's College students in a general science course. Building on a partnership focused on reciprocity, a portable lab experiment (Mattson Microscale Gas Chemistry lab) was proposed. Given the pandemic, the major challenge was working through how to incorporate the community engagement without being physically present at APC. To address this, the Saint Mary's students created an instructional video to be viewed in advance of the activity as a replacement for the formal lab handout, which allowed us to participate without being onsite. With the lab chemicals and materials delivered in advance, APC staff did a pilot run to facilitate a more successful joint lab. When both populations (APC youth and SMC students) met through a Zoom meeting, the lab resulted in a successful experiment and a shared learning experience. This lab experience raised everyone's spirits even during the pandemic. In this report, the two authors provide reflections on the student gains and wish to emphasize that civic learning can still occur even in a pandemic.