[00:00:00]
Ben Newsome: Welcome again for another Fizzics Ed Podcast. This week, we are talking all about chemistry education in its purest form. We’re hanging out with Scott Gietler, who is a co-founder of ChemTalk, which is a collaborative effort involving students and teachers, industry professionals, and citizen scientists. So if you really want to up your chemistry game, we’re hanging out with someone who really loves and understands how to teach chemistry in a way that’s meaningful for students. Let’s hang out with Scott. It’s well worth our time.

[00:00:52]
Scott Gietler: I do a lot of things. When I was young, I had a very big chemistry background. I was in the International Chemistry Olympiad for two years. I actually took high school chemistry five years early. I took college chemistry four years early. My second-grade teacher told me when I was in second grade that I’d memorised the periodic table, and she’d bring me over to other classes to talk about it. I don’t remember that; that was a long time ago. I did a lot of chemistry in college, so science was a big part of my life.

[00:01:32]
Scott Gietler: I’ve worked in a lot of different fields, but the last couple of years, once I had space and time to get back into science, I really discovered my passion for it. At the same time, I realised that things felt a little different than when I was young. When I was young, kids went home and they did science, they had chemistry sets, they loved science. I started talking to people and I found out that you’re not allowed to sell chemistry sets anymore. Kids, when they came home, it seemed like they were doing social media and video games, not science like I did.

[00:02:12]
Scott Gietler: I started building a home lab and doing all these experiments with my kids, and they just loved them. They really got into it. I reached out to one of the most famous people in the United States, Bassam Shakhashiri. He’s famous for producing these books on chemical demonstrations. I told him what a fan I was of his books, and I told him I was in the International Chemistry Olympiad, and he sent me a copy of his books.

[00:02:52]
Scott Gietler: It sort of planted a seed that he does demonstrations in person, and he’s reaching thousands of people, but he’s retiring soon—and he actually just retired. With modern technology and the web, YouTube, and TikTok, we can reach millions of people and really change the perception of chemistry and show people how amazing it is. Then I started talking to other people and some of my neighbours, and I met quite a few people who were really interested in this idea and wanting to help out. Before I knew it, I had three people who wanted to co-found a nonprofit. They were like, “Let’s make it a nonprofit and see if other people and students want to volunteer.” We put the word out and before we knew it, we had like 20 volunteers. I have a lot of experience setting up websites and social media channels, so within a couple of weeks, we were up and running. Next thing I knew, ChemTalk was started.

[00:03:36]
Ben Newsome: And how’s it been going? I love the fact that it just starts with just a small idea and then suddenly you’ve got yourself an organisation and you’re going to make an impact. It’s really awesome. I’m just interested, running these sort of things with kids, what issues or misconceptions do you often see when it comes to chemistry in their understanding of the world? I know for me, one of them is “chemicals are bad,” “chemicals are toxic,” and “they’re going to kill you.” I imagine that’s one of them.

[00:04:19]
Scott Gietler: First of all, the first thing we did when we started ChemTalk is we thought, “Do we even need ChemTalk?” We put together a Google survey and we put it out, and we’ve had hundreds and hundreds of people take it. We found out that 85% of students say that chemistry for them was boring or difficult, or they didn’t like it. We were like, “Wow, this is really high,” and it really gave a lot of validity.

[00:05:00]
Scott Gietler: Speaking of chemicals and toxicity, I think you hit two nails on the head. There’s a lot of misconceptions about what is a chemical. Almost everything’s a chemical, right? Sugar, salt. That’s the number one misconception is people have no idea what a chemical is. I’d say 99% of people think of a chemical as something that’s dangerous, when all a chemical is is a compound. It’s another word for a compound, which is everything. Some things are pure chemicals, some are mixtures of chemicals, but really everything we touch is a chemical. So that’s the number one misconception.

[00:05:40]
Scott Gietler: The number two misconception is toxicity. People think that something is dangerous, it’s toxic, or it’s not. What I tell people—and I didn’t make this phrase up—but it’s the dose that makes something toxic, not the compound, not the chemical. Water can be toxic, salt can be toxic. Even something like vitamin D—vitamin D is a highly toxic compound. If you take a small amount of vitamin D and eat it, you’d probably die because the quantities we take are so small. Same with caffeine. Caffeine, if you were to eat a spoonful of caffeine, you’d probably die because caffeine is also toxic. But the amount in coffee and tea is tiny, it’s minuscule. I think that those two misconceptions form the core of all other misconceptions: that anything can be toxic and that anything can be a chemical.

[00:06:33]
Ben Newsome: Which makes a lot of sense. I suppose that’s the whole point about outreach and science communication and science education to be able to get kids past that, and hopefully adults too, because there’s a lot of people with this idea. But at the same point, you did say something about chemistry being “hard.” I know that when you speak with a lot of elementary-type students or middle school students, they often think of chemistry as being the coloured chemicals mixing together to make a bang. A lot of the time, the last thing you want in the chem lab is a bang; you don’t want that to happen. In the older grades, there’s a lack of understanding that there’s a little bit of mathematics involved, because you need to know what’s genuinely going on. How do we bridge this? Because the kids have got this perception in their head about what chemistry is, then there’s what actually chemistry happens in a high school laboratory, then there’s chemistry that happens in industry, and they almost feel disconnected.

[00:07:31]
Scott Gietler: That’s a great question, and that’s exactly the problem that we thought about that we want to solve. How do we get people interested in chemistry while acknowledging that there are difficult parts? There’s also kids and teachers who just think chemistry is a “bang.” I feel like, first of all, there’s a lot of chemistry demonstrations like throwing sodium in water and it explodes, or you light methanol and you get a lot of “oohs” and “aahs,” but they’re not hands-on. The kids are not doing it themselves. The kids see the teacher do this demonstration and they say, “That’s cool,” and then they move on. It may not institute a love for science.

[00:08:20]
Scott Gietler: One of the things we do at ChemTalk is we do our own research, and we’ve developed dozens of experiments that we think are safe and amazing that the students can actually do, and give them a love for science and chemistry that makes them want to learn the hard stuff. For example, you can take aluminium foil and you can put it in a copper sulfate solution, and if you add a small amount of a catalyst, sodium chloride, you’ll get copper powder instantly. You can filter it and the kid can really hold the copper and say, “Look, I made a pure copper element.” When kids do this, they think it’s just the most amazing thing in the world.

[00:09:10]
Scott Gietler: Why don’t people do that in chemistry? Well, a lot of the chemistry labs have evolved to teach a subject, teach a concept. Everyone who’s done chemistry knows the coffee calorimetry experiment where you need to learn specific heat and you put something in a Styrofoam cup and you heat it up. But chemistry doesn’t always have to teach you something. Sometimes it can just be enough to show people that science is fun and amazing, and then you can make them want to learn it. I think that chemistry has just been so focused on “you have to cram in these subjects” and “everything has to teach you something complicated” that the students don’t get to see the fun part of holding elements or holding a pure piece of chromium or silicon, which is really amazing. That’s just all skipped over.

[00:09:59]
Ben Newsome: That’s the thing. I kind of think about my journey through chemistry-land. It often felt like, when I was very young, honestly, magic. Straight up. Hang on, you had two clear things and now it’s purple? What’s with that? Then they mix the next two clear things and now it’s yellow. It’s like, “What?” It took many years, and honestly, past high school, to really understand it really came down to electrons moving and what these things were actually doing.

[00:10:27]
Ben Newsome: Initially, it was really hard to connect what was going on in the beaker. On paper it made sense, but visually in front of you it was a little bit wild. That’s a misconception often seen with kids because when they’re young, they’ll see mixing of paint or mixing of light and it has a predictable result.

[00:10:54]
Ben Newsome: In chemistry, you could have several different blue reagents and several different yellow reagents, and putting them together, maybe some of them should never even touch depending on what they are. It really is a fine balance between giving them a love of science and going, “Wow, this is fun,” but then also explaining, “Here’s what’s going on as well.” It can be challenging.

[00:11:21]
Scott Gietler: I think you need to start with simple concepts. Like one thing that my daughter loves—she’s six years old—is you take sodium carbonate and we make it in the oven from baking soda, from sodium bicarbonate. So everyone in the US has sodium bicarbonate in their house. You heat it in the oven for an hour, you get sodium carbonate. And then in another beaker, you dissolve Epsom salts, magnesium sulfate.

[00:11:52]
Scott Gietler: And when you mix them together, you get a precipitate of magnesium carbonate. It’s a very simple demonstration that you have two different compounds that dissolve in water that are clear, but when you mix them you make a new compound that does not dissolve in water. And my daughter gets it. She’s like, “This new compound is insoluble. It’s not soluble in water.” And now she completely understands the definition of soluble and insoluble.

[00:12:24]
Scott Gietler: Now, does she know that electrons were transferred? That ions switched compounds and it came out of solution? Maybe not, but I think it’s the idea of one concept at a time that even little kids can understand and appreciate, and make them maybe want to dig into it a little bit deeper.

[00:12:38]
Ben Newsome: Absolutely. With little kids, and actually this does extend into older ones too, even just something as simple as melting versus dissolving. You’ll often see it with kids, especially like you mentioned sugar before, and you put a little bit of sugar and water on it, they’ll often say, “It’s melting.” And it’s like, “Well, is it?” So we’ve got to watch our language, don’t we? When introducing concepts, not to use the vernacular of common talk, because suddenly it’s put into a science lesson and now that’s the real language they use and carry through their lives. It’s very easy to happen, hey?

[00:13:19]
Scott Gietler: Yeah. I’ve found little kids can learn an incredible amount, way more than adults. And if you teach them these things like you’re talking about, they’ll remember it and they’ll correct people and teachers when they say it wrong. They’ll say, “Hey, that’s not melting, that’s dissolving.”

[00:13:42]
Ben Newsome: Absolutely. And then there’s the other thing, for example, all liquids mix together. No. Like with oil and water is the usual example that’s brought out. Much the same, we are going into a bit of a rabbit hole about misconceptions, but this is a real thing. Misconceptions in children’s science goes all the way into adulthood if it’s not corrected. That’s really the job of the educator.

[00:14:03]
Ben Newsome: I’m curious about ChemTalk. I know that what you’re doing is building out a whole bunch of resources that people can access all over the globe, which is very, very cool around chemistry. How does this work if there’s classes, schools, or whatnot who may want to actually do more than just find stuff on websites? Are there plans to maybe go out to them one day?

[00:14:31]
Scott Gietler: There’s three stages. Stage one is to amass a huge following as a comprehensive resource. And we’re seeing that right now. Without even letting anyone know about ChemTalk, a lot of teachers are finding it and sharing the links with the students. We see thousands of visitors from Google Classroom from all different towns across the country and the world. And people are giving us feedback saying, “Hey, we’re sharing this with our students because you explain the concepts in a very simple, fun way.” So that’s phase one.

[00:15:09]
Scott Gietler: Phase two is actually very similar to what you’re doing with your webinars. Phase two, which we plan on starting next year, is we create what’s called the ChemTalk Live Lab. And we have our own space with a pristine, beautiful lab—think the opposite of dingy—where we live stream science and demonstrations to kids. And they can interact and ask questions on either Twitch or Facebook Live or YouTube Live stream. And we give them a schedule, so here’s the schedule for the whole year.

[00:15:41]
Scott Gietler: Sometimes we’re doing a chemistry demonstration, sometimes it could be a visiting teacher or professor doing their own talk or demonstration. It could even be you on there one week where we say, “Hey, Ben Newsome is visiting California from Australia and he’s going to do his own demonstration.” So you can imagine that you can get hundreds or thousands of students on these live streams asking questions and they’re chatting, right? So they have the chat running and they all see each other’s comments.

[00:16:11]
Scott Gietler: And this is happening right now with gaming. Gamers will go on and they’ll play a game on Twitch and thousands of people will watch and tell them what to do and ask questions and make comments. But not that many people are doing it in science. Actually, I thought no one was doing it until I found out that you’re sort of starting to do something similar with your webinars, which is exciting. So that’s the next step for us.

[00:16:41]
Scott Gietler: And then I think the third step is the in-person. But what we’d really like to do is motivate volunteers to take our experiments and demonstrations and concepts, because we want to reach millions of people, right? We want to change the perception of chemistry, change these—and if we’re just going door-to-door, I mean that’s very limiting for us, especially in a big country like the United States, it’s not scalable for us. So we want to give people tools to do it so teachers can incorporate this in the classroom, they can incorporate these concepts and misconceptions. So we want to have that big global impact.

[00:17:24]
Ben Newsome: I feel like it’d be remiss of me not to ask. What’s your favourite chemistry demonstration?

[00:17:31]
Scott Gietler: Ah, there are a few. Lately, two really come to mind. One is Briggs-Rauscher, which we just posted on all of our social media channels this week. And we have a couple versions. One version where it changes colour from amber to blue every 15 seconds, and one where it’s like every three seconds. And that’s really exciting. The Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction is something you have to time-lapse. So when you watch it, it looks boring, but when you time-lapse it, it’s the most beautiful reaction in the world. It creates all these travelling waves of colour.

[00:18:18]
Scott Gietler: And then one of my favourites is when you take gallium and you combine it with aluminium. Even if the gallium’s not a liquid, it will form an alloy, an amalgam with aluminium. And what happens when you add this to water is really interesting. Because most people don’t know, but aluminium foil has a 50-nanometer layer of aluminium oxide that’s always there. Because when you take aluminium foil and put it in water, nothing happens, Ben, right?

[00:18:47]
Ben Newsome: Mm-hmm.

[00:18:48]
Scott Gietler: But it should. Aluminium is an extremely reactive metal. Aluminium easily can turn water into hydrogen.

[00:18:55]
Ben Newsome: And this is one of the reasons the oxide’s on there in the first place, right?

[00:18:58]
Scott Gietler: Yeah. So this oxide layer, not only does it prevent aluminium foil from reacting with anything, but it forms literally at the speed of light. So if you go and you scrape aluminium foil and you’re like, “Okay, I can’t see the oxide layer, I’m going to scrape it away,” it forms literally faster than you can move. But what gallium does is somehow breaks the crystalline structure so that water can actually reach the aluminium element.

[00:19:25]
Scott Gietler: And if you take aluminium and combine it with gallium and put it in water, you instantly get huge bubbles of hydrogen and the aluminium turns into aluminium hydroxide. And it’s really dramatic. It’s very safe. And you can recover the gallium. The gallium’s only a catalyst. It doesn’t even get involved in the reaction. So that’s an example of something that is a lot of fun. And when I tell parents, they’re all like, “We want to do this, we want to get gallium.” And just having kids hold it in their hand is great.

[00:20:01]
Scott Gietler: But very few people know about this. And it’s just one of many examples of things that kids can do over and over safely. And, you know, there’s so many concepts there, you know, redox reaction, materials, phase changes, you know, it’s just—

[00:20:16]
Ben Newsome: I feel like when science educators walk through a hardware store or a grocery store, we have a different eye for what we’re seeing. Because I totally do. I walk the aisles and go, “I could use this, I could do that.” The mind does wander a little bit sometimes, I’m assuming.

[00:20:35]
Scott Gietler: It’s funny, I’ve done the exact same thing, I really have.

[00:20:40]
Ben Newsome: It’s allowed. I mean, you’re effectively shopping for atoms when you really think about what it is that you’re buying, especially if it’s a pure substance. I mean, we’ve got a—and I’m in our recording studio—but just outside is a big rack of what we affectionately call the local brand of shopping centres down here called Woolworths.

[00:21:01]
Scott Gietler: Yeah, we used to have Woolworths.

[00:21:03]
Ben Newsome: There you go! We’ve got a whole rack of what we just basically call it as our Woolworths. It’s heaps of stuff in there, like any other high school science lab you see around the place. And that’s actually something I encourage anyone who’s in the younger years with schools is to slowly build up a stock of things that you can use. The problem, of course, there comes the issue of perishables versus non-perishables and what you can safely store in schools versus not—I mean, there are rules about this.

[00:21:32]
Ben Newsome: But having a go-to space that’s built up over time—I mean, don’t expect to do it straight away, unless you’ve got a lot of money to spend straight away. But it can be very powerful. I mean, the fact that you’re talking about aluminium foil, it’s incredibly versatile. You can use it for more than just chemistry. You can use it for all sorts of stuff. But having it there when you want to do it because the kid asked the question and, more importantly, you know the experiment to do when it’s, “Oh yeah, let me just go get the foil.”

[00:21:58]
Ben Newsome: It’s really good then to go, “Oh, that’s great. I’ll tell you what, we’ll do that next week.” And that’s fine. You come back next week and you do the lesson, but the kid’s interest has waned a bit because they’ve had to wait a week. I mean, maybe if you build it up a little bit that they’re really waiting for the experiment to happen because, “Hey, I’ve been waiting a week for this to happen.” But there’s always that lack of spontaneity that somehow loses that magic as an educator. Because especially like if you’re the one trying to show what you know as best you can, but sometimes you’re limited not by imagination, you’re literally limited by the resources. And so having it nearby is a very important thing.

[00:22:34]
Scott Gietler: Yeah, Woolworths is interesting because Woolworths was actually famous for having a lot of chemistry sets in their windows in the 1940s and 50s. And they also sold something called the Chemical Garden. It’s another one of my favourite demonstrations and it’s important for the kid to do it themselves. Have you done the Chemical Garden?

[00:22:55]
Ben Newsome: I’m curious as to which one it is.

[00:22:56]
Scott Gietler: This is the one where you have sodium silicate solution and you drop in the metal salts. Different coloured metal salts and it grows upwards.

[00:23:07]
Ben Newsome: Yeah, that’s cool. Actually, you know those old kits had some interesting stuff in it. Like some of them had uranium in it and all sorts of things depending on what year. There’s some wild kits when you look at them back in the day, some that you don’t quite see now. And occasionally, they’ve done a very good job of cleaning out high school lab supplies, but every now and then you come across some stuff and you go, “Hmm, that’s an interesting version of phosphorus, for example.” Maybe don’t need to have that yet now.

[00:23:41]
Ben Newsome: But yeah, so I suppose it comes down to students really seeing the world for what it is, which is really just atoms doing their things. Whether it’s solid, liquid, gas, or maybe they’re in the plasma state or something like that. But it’s how they interact and how they can be used. And often when we present chemistry programmes to kids, our job as a chemist is to not only just look at what happens when these reactions take place, is what can you do about this knowledge? Can you apply it in some way? And that honestly then sets the kids on that path towards potentially a career in science.

[00:24:19]
Scott Gietler: I think the first step is getting them interested and excited about it. Some of them may go on to science, some may not, but if you start them off where they just think it’s really hard or they hate it, then that’s never going to happen, right? So we’re trying to get kids and really people in general—I mean, we meet a lot of adults who studied chemistry, or they maybe got a PhD and they’re like, “I don’t even know how to do science with my family. Isn’t it too dangerous?”

[00:24:56]
Scott Gietler: And I’m like, “No,” and I show them what we’re doing and the experiments, and the reaction is just like, “Oh my God, I didn’t know any of this, I can’t wait to do it.” It’s really helping a lot of adults refind their love for science that they had a long time ago, but now they only apply it in their jobs.

[00:25:14]
Ben Newsome: Absolutely. And then one of the arguments I make when we run programmes for adults is science is simply just a way of thinking. It’s just we change one thing and see the effect. And if there’s no effect, guess what? That was the effect. Nothing happened, that’s the result. But if something happens, well now we’ve learned something. That’s all it is.

[00:25:34]
Ben Newsome: I mean, all the huge body of knowledge around the globe—of course it’s deep and rich and it takes a bit of time to learn, but it really just boils down to that simple concept of what’s happening in front of you and can you change one thing? And what’s the result? That’s all it is. That’s all science is. And once you sort of break it down to a very basic way of viewing things, from there you can build. And it really makes a difference.

[00:25:59]
Ben Newsome: And actually that brings up the point, I’m just curious, if you had some educators in front of you and you were going to really give them some guidance, some ideas about really good ways of getting kids into chemistry, what would be your initial suggestions?

[00:26:16]
Scott Gietler: I think that I would suggest that they introduce them to what you talked about. Introduce them to atoms and elements and compounds and let them do some simple experiments that show you some really amazing elements and compounds, whether it’s their static or you can form them. I think for a lot of people I know that got interested in science, it was learning about the periodic table, learning about colour changes, just exposing people to some of that and just seeing their reaction.

[00:26:52]
Scott Gietler: Letting them grow some metal crystals themselves or the Chemical Garden and showing them a model of an atom and how electrons work and how molecules are formed before—without giving them the hard difficult math right away. Just postpone that a little bit. I’m not saying don’t do it, but just change the order of how people are exposed to stuff, because a lot of places they just jump right into these more difficult concepts, theoretical concepts that make people lose interest.

[00:27:35]
Ben Newsome: Yeah. Let’s take that first step before we try and run. That makes a lot of sense. And that’s actually the real key of education, isn’t it? Because it is so tempting to use the big words. It really, really is. And I’ve only been teaching for 20 years and I know there’s people who have been teaching for 40 or 50 or whatnot, and it takes a long time to kind of refine your language, especially when you’re dealing with the younger ones of which, my world, very much whilst we teach up to grade 10, a lot of my work is in the middle years.

[00:28:05]
Ben Newsome: And it’s so tempting to tell the kids what you know for grade 12 or potentially a postgraduate class, but you’re doing them a disservice by saying the big words because all you do is turn them off. You’re actually doing exactly the opposite of what you’re trying to achieve. It is important to keep that in the back of your mind. Are you saying this to help or saying this to show off? And that’s not what we’re really to be doing. You’re there to help, that’s the job of the educator, for sure.

[00:28:34]
Scott Gietler: Well you remind me, I was on a call the other day with this wonderful person from Science Buddies. Science Buddies is one of the most established STEM education nonprofits in the US, and they have tons of resources. And they were telling me that when they get science writers—and a lot of science writers are PhDs—and ask them to write for a middle school or fifth grade audience, it’s very hard for them to make it uncomplicated.

[00:29:00]
Scott Gietler: And that’s really what makes ChemTalk unique is that all of our volunteers—and eventually we’re going to have some full-time employees to manage the volunteers so we can grow it to 200, 300, 400 volunteers—but right now everyone who’s writing is a college student or even a high school student. And it just comes naturally to them to make it in a simple, fun, easy-to-understand way.

[00:29:31]
Scott Gietler: And some of these people are chemistry majors, they’ve had very advanced topics so they know the material very well, but they know how to relate to people their age. And so that’s just all the feedback we’ve been getting is, “Yeah, it’s so easy and simple to understand this” versus going to an online textbook or even other educational resources. So I do think that there’s a huge advantage to having younger people explain things to each other.

[00:30:05]
Ben Newsome: Absolutely. And actually that brings up the point, how do people get in touch with you?

[00:30:11]
Scott Gietler: If you want to get in touch with us, the easiest way is to email [email protected], A-D-M-I-N at chemistrytalk.org. And we are looking for advisors, we’re looking for volunteers, we’re looking for writers, we’re looking for donors, sponsors, partners, collaborators. ChemTalk is designed to be a vehicle that people want to be a part of to help the organisation reach a global audience.

[00:30:42]
Scott Gietler: And, you know, we can’t do this alone with the existing team. The idea is that it grows and as people find out about it, they want to be part of it, and they can do that in a lot of different ways. So either email us or come to the website, chemistrytalk.org, and there’s lots of information on there on how to get in touch with us. And yeah, if anyone’s listening to this, we’d really like to hear from you, even if you just want to tell us, “Yeah, we listened and thanks for what you’re doing.”

[00:31:13]
Ben Newsome: The beauty about it is it’s such a simple thing to look in your favourite search engine: ChemTalk. Simple. And then you’ll be—

[00:31:21]
Scott Gietler: Yeah, you type in ChemTalk, we’re like the first 12 results.

[00:31:25]
Ben Newsome: And that should rise over time, right?

[00:31:29]
Scott Gietler: No, we’re number one and number two, three, four, all the way down to 12. So we’re all the top 12 results. We’re not number 12, we’re all 12 of the first results.

[00:31:41]
Ben Newsome: There you go, so you can’t miss it. And as usual, we’ll put these links in the show notes too, so you’ll definitely be able to find it. And definitely reach out. I really encourage you. And I’m really curious to see what’s going to happen over the next couple of years, especially as you grow this what is amounting to a huge body of work when you think about the number of people that are writing week on week, effectively going to be year on year. That’s going to be quite deep, and it won’t take long to happen.

[00:32:07]
Scott Gietler: I’m excited. We’re already getting 90,000 visitors a month on the website, which is smashing through our expectations. And we have elements on there, we have tutorials, experiments, history of chemistry, interviews. Right now, for people to get this information, they literally have to go to eight different places.

[00:32:31]
Scott Gietler: And this, as far as I know, we’re the first people to bring it all together. So not only can you learn chemistry, but you can learn how to do it, you can learn about role models, historical role models, modern role models, all in one place. So we really want people to fall down a rabbit hole. Sort of like your site, the Fizzle webinar also is a rabbit hole. I really enjoyed looking through your site.

[00:32:58]
Ben Newsome: The Fizzics Education website really grew out of just initially the free resources grew out of getting inquiries a lot about how to make, you know, the standard volcano or something. And so we would email “Here’s how to do it.” And then it was like, “Why don’t we just publish that?”

[00:33:19]
Ben Newsome: And by the way, anyone listening in, yes, the traditional vinegar and bicarb soda volcano is technically not exactly what happens in a volcano. We always have to frame that as it’s just a visual representation of what’s actually happening because there’s a lot of flak that can happen when you talk about “Is that what’s happening?” But it’s not. But it’s still a hook to then talk about the geology processes. But here’s the thing: these things build over time. And so yeah, there’s a couple of hundred experiments and a lot of podcasts and whatnot all on the site. And again, it’s meant to be a way to help, and I think that’s exactly what ChemTalk’s doing, which is fantastic.

[00:33:53]
Scott Gietler: Well thanks, Ben. We really appreciate the support. It means a lot. And it’s been great to talk to you and the audience.

[00:34:04]
Announcer: You’re listening to the Fizzics Ed Podcast. For hundreds of ideas, free experiments and more, go to fizzicseducation.com.au. And now, here’s your host, Ben Newsome.

[00:34:23]
Ben Newsome: Well there we go, we just heard from Scott Gietler, who is the co-founder of ChemTalk. So if you want to know more, head on over to chemistrytalk.org. That’s chemistrytalk.org. Head on over and find out all the different ways you can teach chemistry using the fancy chemicals all the way down to the simple ingredients that you can get from the local shops.

[00:34:51]
Ben Newsome: And really when you think about it, chemistry really is about getting kids into a lifetime of learning and exploration. Really get them to understand that chemicals aren’t these weird things that are dangerous all the time; they are used in everyday life. And places like ChemTalk really help kids understand this to no end. So I hope you enjoyed this particular chat. I certainly did. And I hope you have a fantastic afternoon, morning, evening, whatever it is that you’re doing. And I hope to catch you another time. You’ve been listening to me, Ben Newsome from Fizzics Education. This is the Fizzics Ed Podcast and I’ll catch you another time.

[00:35:12]
Announcer: You’ve been listening to another Fizzics Ed Podcast. We’re excited about science, edtech and more. Subscribe on iTunes to download the next episode as soon as it’s released. And don’t forget, for hundreds of ideas, free experiments, our new “Be Amazing” book and more, go to fizzicseducation.com.au. That’s physics spelled F-I-Z-Z-I-C-S. And click “100 free experiments.”

[00:35:41]
Announcer: This podcast is part of the Australian Educators Online Network. AEON.net.au.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the primary goal of ChemTalk?

ChemTalk is a non-profit organisation aimed at changing the perception of chemistry. It focuses on making the subject fun, accessible, and meaningful by providing free resources, live-streamed demonstrations, and student-led content to a global audience.

What are some common misconceptions about chemicals?

The most common misconception is that “chemicals” are inherently dangerous or toxic. In reality, almost everything—including water, salt, and sugar—is a chemical compound. Another misconception is that toxicity is absolute, whereas it is actually the dose that determines whether a substance is harmful.

How does ChemTalk propose making chemistry less “boring” or “hard”?

By prioritising hands-on experimentation and visual wonder before introducing complex mathematics or theoretical jargon. Scott suggests letting students hold elements and see immediate reactions to build a love for the science first.

Why is student-led content effective in science education?

Younger writers, such as university students, often find it easier to explain complex topics in simple, relatable language. This avoids the “curse of knowledge” where experts might unintentionally use overly technical terms that discourage beginners.

Can chemistry be taught using everyday household items?

Absolutely. Many sophisticated chemical concepts, like precipitates or redox reactions, can be demonstrated using items found at the local grocery store, such as baking soda, Epsom salts, and aluminium foil.

Extra thought ideas to consider

Watch Your Vernacular

Educators should be careful with language; for example, distinguishing between “melting” and “dissolving” when using sugar. Using precise scientific language early on helps prevent misconceptions from carrying into adulthood.

The Future of Science Engagement

Following the trend of gaming platforms like Twitch, science education can leverage live-streaming to create interactive “Live Labs” where thousands of students can ask questions and engage with experiments in real-time.

Discussion points summarised from the FizzicsEd Podcast, verified and edited by Ben Newsome CF