Outreach

Element Sets for Schools

The year 2019 was declared the International Year of the Periodic Table, and to mark this occasion, and to enthuse and inspire school students about STEM subjects (chemistry in particular), we assembled ‘sample sets’ of pure chemical elements and distributed them FREE to secondary schools all around Australia. Approximately half the secondary schools in Australia were contacted and offered at set, with priority given to remote, rural, low SEO and government schools.

In all, 600 sets were distributed, and the success of this first round of sets led to a second round of 1000 sets being produced and distributed in 2023/4. Furthermore, while the first round sets contained up to 33 elements, the second round had an expanded catalogue of 37 pure elements each, and thus ‘expansion packs’ were also sent to owners of the first round sets to add the new elements to these older sets.

As a result, over both rounds roughly 60,000 individual samples were separated from the bulk samples and loaded into sample containers, which were then each individually labelled. Each set also contained a specially written 40-page booklet describing the properties and applications of each element in the set. These physical resources were also supplemented by a dedicated website containing Teachers’ Notes with information on safety and upkeep of the set, suggested classroom activities, class plans, full SDS safety sheets, and other information. By the end of the second round, every secondary school in Australia was offered a free set, many for a second time (with disadvantaged schools again given first priority). As a result, more than half of the secondary schools in Australia now have an elements set from this project, benefitting approximately 150,000 students each and every year (i.e. contributing to 1.5 million student lessons over the next decade).

Head to the elementsets.net website for more details, or Twitter (#elementsets) for updates.

Element Collections

Prof. Batten has, over the years, built several collections of the elements, for both his own amusement and for the purposes of outreach. These include a wall display, two portable sets in briefcases, and a highly visual set containing samples of both the pure element and a compound or device containing that element. All of these sets are complete (as far as is physically possible). In addition, a set of elemental density cubes and a set of elemental dice are in progress, and he also has an extensive collection of element discharge tubes.

Bragg Your Pattern

Prof. Batten is co-founder and co-organiser of the BraggYourPattern outreach arm of the Society of Crystallographers in Australia and New Zealand (SCANZ). Highlights include:

• Crystal-a-con – a public outreach event, targetting primary-aged children and their families, embedded in the IUCr2023 international conference on crystallography. The two-day event attracted 480 participants, who were treated to a wide range of activities to stimulate their interest in STEM. A full summary can be found here.
• Building the world’s largest crystal structure model. The model of the structure of diamond contained 62,356 atoms connected by 121,547 bonds (i.e. 183,903 individual components) and had a total weight of 341 kg and a total volume of 4.47 m³. The bottom triangular edges were 3.69 m, the top triangular edges were 2.31 m, and the height was 1.11 m.
• Assembling and distributing 1000 free diamond model kits for primary schools all over Australia and New Zealand. These kits will contain the model parts originally used to construct the world record crystal structure model (see above), as well as a specially-written educational booklet.
• Commissioning of a new Bragg T-shirt design celebrating Lawrence Bragg (now available here).
• A nationwide pattern competition aimed at primary and lower-secondary aged school kids.
• Designing and building a giant ‘buckyball’ model, based on the design and development of an earlier model (see below).

Head to the braggyourpattern.com website for more details.

Other Outreach

We have been involved in numerous other outreach activities, including public lectures, schools visits, and open days. One highlight was the design and construction of a large (3m diameter) model of a buckyball (C₆₀) molecule, which took a number of iterations to get right.