Branham launched its first of five experience tutorials yesterday in an effort to encourage students to be more curious about scientific topics. 

The idea of experience tutorials originally came from science teacher Kori Reynolds, who introduced the concept to the science department as a way to make learning more hands-on and involve more students in science.

In their first experiment, science teacher Juan Maculet-Fernandez explained a chemical process that changes the color of a penny when exposed to a Bunsen Burner.

“It’s about a chemical reaction that happens to the copper that covers the pennies, in which we do a chemical reaction to make them silver, which is actually zinc,” Fernandez said. “Then, we melt the zinc layer with a copper layer to make brass, which looks like gold.”

Fernandez found setting up the tutorial to be time-consuming, especially given the short amount of time available.

“We had to have volunteer teachers to do this and try to find a fun one that engages the students. To prepare this, it took me a couple hours,” Fernandez said.

Freshman Sophia Cummings explained her reason for signing up for this science tutorial.

“I’ve always really been into science, and I thought this would be a fun experience for me and my friends,” Cummings said.

Cummings hopes to take advanced science courses that will help enhance her scientific knowledge.

“I’m planning on taking a lot of science [classes like] AP because I want to do something in science because I want to do something in science when I am old,” Cummings said.

Freshman Abigail Marshall joined the tutorial to get hands-on experience through Fernandez’s directions and guidance.

“Watching the demonstration in itself was already really cool, but actually being able to do it ourselves was so fun,” Marshall said.

Photo by Rebecca Tochilnikov

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