By Anastasia Benstead, Assistant Editor-in-Chief
On Monday Oct. 20 the American Chemistry Society (ACS) RSO at Aquinas hosted “Hot, Spiced Cider with ACS”.
ACS happily sips warm apple cider. Left to right: Emilie Poirier (vice president), Andrew Moody (treasurer) and Ella Satterthwaite (president). Not pictured: Cadence Schultz (social media manager) and David La Verdiere (secretary)- Photo by Anastasia Benstead
“We do chemistry themed events for fun as well as for professional development,” Ella Satterthaite, ACS president, said.
“The theme that is given by the American Chemical Society is spices and the chemistry behind them,” Emilie Poirier, ACS vice president, said. “With apple cider, we chose cinnamon. It is a very commonly used spice and the actual compound that gives it the cinnamon smell we all know and love is called cinnamaldehyde.”
A diagram of cinnamaldehyde – Photo by the American Chemical Society
While there are ways to make cinnamaldehyde in a lab, the easiest and cheapest way is to obtain it from the naturally occurring, pale, thick yellow liquid produced by cinnamon trees and found in their bark via distillation.
Stationed outside in Wege mall the event exceeded expectations. “We normally run all of our events in Albertus,” Poirier said. “But we decided to run this one out here because we wanted to be able to reach out to people who aren’t necessarily science people or always in Albertus, and with National Chemistry Week being for everyone we wanted to make our event more accessible.
“We’ve passed out about 3 and a half gallons of apple cider by now,” ACS treasurer Andrew Moody said with 30 more minutes left in the event.
“We are using this event to not only share chemistry fun facts about cinnamon, but also to get awareness out about the rest of the fun stuff we will be doing this week,” Poirier said.
The American Chemistry Society is hosting a program in a box event on Oct. 22 from 7-8 p.m. in Albertus where attendees will learn from a flavor research scientist about how humans sense flavors. Additionally, there is a scavenger hunt occurring every day this week where Avogadro the Mole is being hidden somewhere in Albertus starting on Oct. 21. In order to win, students must send a selfie with the mole via dm to the ACS instagram account (@aquinasacs_), then take the mole to the Chemistry Lounge on the third floor to claim the prize. Any of the Aquinas Chemistry Society board members or chemistry faculty are able to pass out prizes.
American Chemical Society nanomol and prize of scavenger hunt competition – Photo by Anastasia Benstead
On Friday Oct. 24 the ACS will also be conducting an elephant toothpaste demonstration from noon-1 p.m. in Wege mall with a possibility of the demonstration being repeated at Senate’s Trunk-or-Treating event.
Upcoming events for National Chemistry Week and the rest of the semester- Photo by Anastasia Benstead
ACS’s largest event of the fall semester will be Nov. 15 and they are hosting the Girl Scouts of West Michigan to participate in a day filled with science experiments and the opportunity to earn their crazy chemist badge; the ACS is still looking for volunteers.
The Saint 