Girls watch instructor light hand on fire — for science

If your goal is to convince Grade 7 and 8 girls that science is cool, then it's hard to go wrong with lighting a fire in your hand  — as a way of explaining the chemistry behind skin-protecting water bubbles, that is.

That's what University of Saskatchewan student Anna Wheeler did Saturday afternoon during day one of the weekend-long DiscoverSTEM conference hosted at the school.

"We had put butane from the hoses in the chemistry [lab] into water and it creates water bubbles, so you dip your hand in some water and scoop up some of those bubbles," said Wheeler.

"And then when they lit my hand, the gas caught flame but the water did not. So it didn't touch my hand at all. It felt a little bit warm. But the flame was quite large so the girls were pretty excited."

The conference, a partnership between the university and groups including the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Saskatchewan, drew 18 girls from across the province, six more than in 2016.

It was meant to spark a curiosity in science plus technology, engineering and math at a time when students are thinking about what kind of courses they'd like to take in high school.

"People can do so many different things today that we want to try and encourage these girls to pick the fields of sciences and things that are very exciting, but as something that they don't always see as being applicable to them," said Wheeler.

Jada Roberts was one of three students from Churchill Community High School in La Ronge, Sask., who were driven to the conference by their teacher.

Roberts said she enjoyed learning about the chemical process behind hot and cold packs.

"We put some kind of salt and put it in a little plastic bag with some water and mixed it up," she said. "It was a chemical reaction when the two mix and the salt absorbs the water. [Before], I thought it was just water in a bag."

She also dug the University of Saskatchewan campus.

"I love all the architecture and stuff. It's so neat. It basically looks like a castle."

Bhavandeep Bath, a Grade 8 student at Greystone Heights School in Saskatoon and returning DiscoverSTEM participant, says she wants to be a neurosurgeon.  

"I like helping people, so that's the route I want to take," she said. "Maybe I want to become a teacher, but I want to do something with sciences.

"I really believe that there should be more females in science because they can bring a whole new perspective to it.

Sunday saw her using computer code to gradually mould the image of a watermelon.

And as for that whole hand-lighting-on-fire thing:

"I thought that was pretty cool," she said.