Spotlight: University of Maryland, College Park

Location: College Park, MD
Faculty advisor: Efrain Rodriguez
President: Seth Cohen
Chapter Members: 32

What special projects has your chapter done?

One of our proudest achievements is building a tutoring program at College Park Academy. We initially reached out to the school to see if we could come in to do some fun demonstrations to get the kids excited about chemistry. After speaking with an administrator at the school, we learned that the students were really struggling with chemistry, and she asked us if we would be willing to put together a tutoring program for them. The logistics were difficult to work out, because volunteers in this school district are required to be fingerprinted and have background checks. Hosting the program was also a bigger challenge than we expected, because we had to put together lesson plans each week, and think of ways to teach the concepts so that the kids could understand them. It was a lot of hard work, but it was extremely gratifying when we were finally able to give the kids “aha” moments.

To read more, visit https://inchemistry.acs.org/student-chapters/university-maryland-college-park.html