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| PhD students Michael Jakubinek (Physics) and Andrew Ritchie (Chemistry) get a kick out of Mary Anne White's 鈥渄ancing raisins鈥� experiment. (Danny Abriel photo) |
I heard it through the grapevine鈥� raisins actually can dance.
Just take a couple of raisins and plop them in clear glass filled with colourless soda, like 7-Up or Sprite. Then sit back and watch the raisins shimmy and shake, sink and then rise and start all over again.
Renowned AV俱乐部 chemistry professor Mary Anne White has conducted this simple experiment, an oldie but a goodie, to explain the concept of buoyancy.
鈥淚 did this experiment, oh, maybe 20 years ago,鈥� says Dr. White. 鈥淎nd I can still remember the looks on the kids鈥� faces. They were saucer-eyed.鈥�
Dr. White is the director of AV俱乐部鈥檚 Institute of Research in Materials. Insatiably curious, she loves being in her lab. But outreach and communicating the gee-whiz of science have always been important too. Telling other people, from kids to parliamentarians, about science enriches her own understanding, she says.
鈥淪ome scientists are so focused on their research they don鈥檛 want to do anything else,鈥� says Dr. White, whose own research explores the heat-conducting properties of materials, including elephant tusks, crystals and cement. 鈥淏ut if I discover something neat, I just want to run out and tell someone about it.鈥�
She loves to teach, in the broadest sense. She鈥檚 a regular contributor on CBC Radio鈥檚 Maritime Noon, a frequent guest of CBC鈥檚 science show Quirks & Quarks and has appeared on Discovery Channel鈥檚 How Things Work. She鈥檚 written textbooks, journal articles and activity booklets, and the latter have been distributed to thousands of kids by the Canadian Society for Chemistry. She鈥檚 given an early morning lecture on science 鈥� in the 鈥淏acon and Eggheads鈥� series 鈥� to MPs and senators in Ottawa.
The trick to talking about science to a general audience is to strip out the jargon and explain concepts in words everyone can understand. Thus 鈥渢hermochromic properties of materials鈥� becomes 鈥渕aterials that change color with the temperature.鈥�
The other important thing is to respect the audience, says Dr. White. 鈥淵es, you鈥檙e a scientist, but some people may know more than you on a certain topic. If you can learn from them, why not?鈥�
Her efforts haven鈥檛 gone unnoticed. Dr. White didn鈥檛 work with Donald Ramsay, but the researcher emeritus at the National Research Council thought enough of her efforts promoting and communicating science to nominate her for a special award of the Royal Society of Canada.
It was a touching and generous gesture. When Dr. White accepted the McNeil Medal at a ceremony last week, she thought of Dr. Ramsay, who recently passed away. By receiving the award, Dr. White joins some prestigious company; previous winners include David Suzuki, Quirks & Quarks host Bob MacDonald and the Discovery Channel鈥檚 Jay Ingram.
鈥淭alking about science has always been important to me,鈥� says Dr. White. 鈥淲hen you talk to people about science, they ask questions about things that we scientists didn鈥檛 even think about. I find it refreshing. It makes me think.鈥�